Mistakes to Avoid After a Bicycle Accident

Answer:

When we have people come to us after being injured in a bicycle accident, they’ve often done things that harm their case without even knowing it. It’s very important to make sure you avoid these problems. First, we frequently see people that have been injured on bikes destroying evidence that could be helpful to us. Make sure that clothing is preserved. Oftentimes, you’ll have bloody clothing, or maybe clothing that had to be cut off of you at the emergency room. Helmets, pads, shoes, and bicycles may have been destroyed or mangled during the accident, but you shouldn’t dispose of this crucial evidence.

Another thing that we see at times, although not as often in bike cases, is people who don’t do a good job of getting immediate medical attention. It’s important to go ahead and get medical treatment from the time that you begin to feel pain so that you can correlate your pain to the injuries you suffered in this collision. This is more prevalent in car wreck cases because the impact people get in bike wrecks is often so much more severe.

Always get treated immediately. Don’t let a long time pass before you have treatment if you’re experiencing pain. Another thing we see people do that can really harm their case is not following through with their treatment. We oftentimes see people who tell their physicians that their pain has resolved, when in fact, it hasn’t. They are just getting impatient with the treatment process. Make sure that you don’t underestimate your case. Don’t tell the doctors you are better when you’re not. Also, don’t allow gaps in your treatment to occur. When people don’t follow through and they go long periods of time where they haven’t gotten treatment, insurance companies will latch onto this and claim that they must not have been as injured as they say they are or they would have been getting that regular treatment. Don’t give them that opportunity.

Finally, make sure you immediately hire an attorney that is experienced in handling these types of cases. Attorneys are going to want to get out to the scene and preserve any evidence. There could be blood on the concrete that will eventually disappear. There could be scuff marks in the asphalt from where the bike hit. There could be remnants of the bike or the car that are still around. Make sure you hire someone that knows what they’re doing and has experience handling bicycle cases.