We can help you get maximum compensation for your motorcycle accident.
Motorcycle accidents are among the most dangerous types of collisions, and can result in significant personal injuries or even death for the rider. If you or a family member has been injured or killed in a motorcycle accident here in the Los Angeles area, Blair & Ramirez LLP can help you recover maximum compensation. Call us at (213) 568-4000 for a free consultation.
Recent Cases We've Won
$2.5 MILLION Settlement:
Our client's life was irrevocably altered due to an accident resulting from a reckless driver's actions. We intervened, advocating relentlessly to secure the justice they deserved.
$2.02 MILLION Settlement:
Our client's life was changed forever by his accident. We made sure he received fair compensation from the insurance company.
Why it's important to speak with a lawyer first.
Before talking to an insurance company, it's important to speak with a lawyer first. Insurance companies often try to pay you much less, but a lawyer will work to get you a fair amount that helps you get back on track.
Expert Legal Knowledge: Lawyers possess in-depth understanding of traffic laws and legal procedures, ensuring your case is handled with expertise.
Dealing with Insurance Companies: They skillfully navigate complex negotiations with insurance companies, advocating for fair compensation on your behalf.
Maximizing Compensation: A lawyer can accurately assess the value of your claim, including medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering, to maximize your compensation.
Handling Legal Complexities: They manage all legal aspects of your case, from filing claims to court representations, allowing you to focus on recovery.
We're here to help.
"Assessing a motorcycle accident claim is challenging, given the many variables. Let us answer your questions - it's free!"
5 Essential Steps to Follow After a Motorcycle Accident in California
Report the Accident
As soon as possible after the accident, report it to the local police. An official report is essential for any claims process.
Seek Medical Attention
Your health comes first. Get a medical evaluation immediately and document your injuries, as this information is crucial for your claim.
Gather Evidence
If you're able to, collect evidence at the accident scene. Take photos of the scene, your motorcycle, any other vehicles involved, and get contact details of any witnesses.
Consult a Motorcycle Accident Lawyer
Before you contact your insurance company, it's wise to consult a lawyer who specializes in motorcycle accidents in California. They can provide valuable guidance on how to proceed with your claim.
Contact Insurance Providers
After consulting with your lawyer, they'll inform your insurance provider about the accident. Your lawyer can speak directly with the provider to protect your interests.
Motorcycle Insurance Claims Procedure
Notice of Intent:
You or your lawyer will notify the opposing driver's insurance company of your intention to file an injury claim. In response, the company will provide a claim number and appoint an adjuster.
Statement Recording:
The adjuster might request your recorded statement. However, be cautious, as adjusters are skilled in eliciting damaging responses. Consult an attorney before providing any statement.
Vehicle Repairs:
The insurer of the driver at fault should cover your car repairs or total loss settlement, along with rental car fees. Alternatively, if you have collision insurance, you can opt for your insurer to manage the property damage claim.
Initial Settlement Offer:
An early settlement proposal may come your way. The adjuster aims to settle quickly for a minimal amount. Delay settlement talks until after your medical treatment is complete.
Commencing Negotiations:
Post-treatment, initiate claim negotiations by sending a demand letter and relevant documents to the insurer of the at-fault driver.
Achieving Final Settlement:
Following several negotiation rounds, ideally, a compromise is reached. Upon signing the settlement agreement, you should receive your payment within weeks.
Alternative to Failed Negotiations:
If negotiations are unsuccessful, other avenues include arbitration or suing the at-fault driver for personal injury.
Estimating Compensation After a Motorcycle Accident
Here's a simplified guide to calculate your compensation from a motorcycle accident:
Calculate All Costs: Start by adding up all your expenses from the motorcycle accident. This includes medical bills, lost wages due to missed work, and any other costs directly related to the accident.
Pain and Suffering: For the pain and suffering caused by the motorcycle accident, multiply your total costs (from step 1) by 1 to 2 times. If your injuries are more severe, this multiplier might be higher.
Total Estimate: Combine your calculated expenses and the amount for pain and suffering. This will give you a rough estimate of the total compensation you might expect.
Key Factors Affecting Compensation in a Motorcycle Accident
Fault and Negligence: If you're partly at fault for the motorcycle accident, your compensation might be reduced. In some states, if you're more at fault than the other party, you might not get any compensation.
Amount of Costs: The more you can prove in terms of costs (like medical bills) from the motorcycle accident, the more compensation you're likely to get.
Injury Severity: Minor injuries from a motorcycle accident typically mean lower compensation, especially for pain and suffering. Serious injuries need careful calculation, often by a legal expert.
Insurance Limits: If the person responsible for the motorcycle accident doesn't have enough insurance coverage, it might affect your compensation. In such cases, your own insurance might be a way to get some compensation
Understanding Your Case
Negligence-Based Accidents
In negligence-based motorcycle accident cases, the collision often results from another driver's careless or reckless behavior. Such actions include distracted driving, like texting while driving, speeding, ignoring traffic signals, or driving under the influence. These irresponsible actions compromise road safety, leading to potentially devastating consequences for motorcyclists, who are more exposed and vulnerable on the road.
Legal Focus: Our approach involves meticulously proving the other party's negligence. This includes gathering evidence such as traffic camera footage, eyewitness statements, and police reports to establish fault and secure rightful compensation for our clients.
Negligence is any failure to exercise reasonable care while driving, such as texting while driving, speeding, or driving under the influence, which leads to an accident.
Proving fault requires evidence like accident scene photos, witness testimonies, and expert analysis to demonstrate the other driver’s negligence.
Yes, under California's comparative negligence law, you can still claim compensation, though it may be reduced by your percentage of fault in the accident.
“Comparative negligence” is a rule that states that your recoverable compensation in the event of an accident can be reduced by the percentage you are at fault. This means that insurance adjusters can reduce what they compensate you if they determine you were at fault in some way.
This statute is one of the key reasons you want to immediately get in contact with a Los Angeles automobile accident lawyer like Blair & Ramirez LLP before talking to insurance representatives. If their investigation finds that you were speeding at the time of the accident, they can use that as a reason to reduce the compensation for your personal injuries.
Lane Splitting Accidents
Lane splitting accidents occur when a motorcyclist navigates between lanes of traffic, a maneuver legal in California but fraught with risks. These incidents often happen in congested traffic conditions and can result from both motorists' and motorcyclists' failure to observe safe distances or misjudge speeds, leading to collisions. Such accidents require careful legal navigation to establish fault and liability, considering the complexities of lane-splitting regulations.
Legal Focus:We focus on the intricacies of California's lane-splitting laws, assessing how each party's actions contributed to the accident to establish liability and defend our client's rights.
Lane splitting is legal in California, but its legality can affect the determination of fault and liability in an accident claim.
Liability is determined by examining whether the motorcyclist or the driver adhered to safe driving practices during the lane-splitting maneuver.
Crucial evidence includes eyewitness accounts, traffic surveillance footage, and expert testimony regarding the safe practice of lane splitting.
Hit and Run Accidents
Hit and run accidents present unique challenges, as they involve a responsible party fleeing the scene, often leaving the victim injured and without crucial information for a claim. These scenarios require immediate action and thorough investigation to identify the fleeing party and ensure victims have the necessary details to pursue their legal rights and seek fair compensation for their injuries and damages, despite the initial lack of information.
Legal Focus: Our efforts focus on identifying the fleeing driver through investigations and dealing with uninsured motorist coverage if they remain unidentified, ensuring our clients are not left without options.
Immediately report the accident to the police, seek medical attention, and then consult a lawyer to explore your legal options.
Compensation can be pursued through your own insurance if you have uninsured motorist coverage.
Yes, uninsured motorist coverage typically applies in hit-and-run cases and can provide compensation for injuries and damages.
Drunk Driving Accidents
Accidents where a motorcyclist is struck by a driver impaired by alcohol or drugs are tragically frequent and particularly hazardous. The impaired driver's diminished reaction times, poor judgment, and lack of vehicular control dramatically heighten the risk of severe injuries or even fatalities for the motorcyclist involved in these perilous situations.
Legal Focus: We emphasize the criminal culpability of the drunk driver while advocating for comprehensive compensation for our clients, including punitive damages where applicable.
You can pursue a personal injury lawsuit for damages and, in some cases, punitive damages against the drunk driver.
The involvement of a drunk driver may increase the likelihood of receiving higher compensation due to their egregious conduct.
Yes, punitive damages are often pursued in cases involving drunk drivers to punish the driver for their reckless behavior.
Motorcycle Accidents Due to Road Conditions
In cases involving poor road conditions, factors like potholes, inadequate signage, or poorly maintained road surfaces play a significant role in causing accidents. These conditions can create hazardous situations for motorcyclists, who are particularly vulnerable to changes in road surfaces and may not have sufficient warning to navigate safely, leading to potentially serious accidents.
Legal Focus: We challenge public entities responsible for road maintenance, navigating the complexities of claims against government bodies to secure justice for our clients.
The responsibility often lies with the government entity or agency tasked with maintaining the road where the accident occurred.
Filing a claim involves notifying the responsible government entity within a specific timeframe and providing detailed evidence of the poor road conditions.
Evidence includes photos of the accident site, maintenance records of the road, and expert testimony on how the road condition directly caused the accident.
Defective Motorcycle or Parts
These accidents stem from a malfunction or failure in the motorcycle or its components, such as brake failures, tire blowouts, or engine malfunctions. Such defects can unexpectedly compromise the motorcycle's performance and safety on the road, often leading to crashes that can result in severe injuries or fatalities for the rider. The complexity of these cases lies in identifying and proving the specific defect that caused the accident.
Legal Focus: We pursue product liability claims against manufacturers or retailers, demanding accountability for selling defective products and securing compensation for our clients.
An investigation, often involving experts, is needed to determine if a defect in the motorcycle or its parts caused the accident.
Manufacturers, distributors, or retailers of the motorcycle or parts can be held liable if a defect in their product caused the accident.
Compensation can include medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and punitive damages, depending on the severity of the defect and its impact.
Motorcycle accidents resulting in significant injuries or fatalities are among the most severe and impactful cases. These incidents often lead to life-altering consequences, including traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage, or even loss of life. The physical, emotional, and financial toll on victims and their families can be immense, requiring specialized legal assistance to navigate the aftermath and seek appropriate compensation for their extensive losses and suffering.
Legal Focus: We seek comprehensive compensation to cover extensive damages, including ongoing medical treatment, rehabilitation, loss of income, and in cases of fatality, wrongful death claims and loss of companionship.
Serious injuries include traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, severe fractures, or any injury leading to long-term or permanent disability.
Compensation is based on the extent of injuries, the impact on quality of life, loss of income, and emotional distress. In wrongful death cases, it also includes funeral expenses and loss of companionship.
Yes, immediate family members, such as spouses, children, or parents, can file a wrongful death claim to seek compensation for their loss.
Impact Types Of Motorcycle Accidents Here In Los Angeles
In Los Angeles, motorcycle accidents range from collisions involving several vehicles, often leading to complex injury scenarios, to sudden rear crashes in dense traffic, causing riders to be thrown off. Direct frontal impacts result in severe trauma, while side impacts at intersections or during lane changes are common and dangerous.
Here are a few types of impacts:
A vehicle colliding with a motorcycle can send the bike and its rider flying into a street, intersection, or a highway. This can cause a cascading effect of other accidents as other vehicles stop short to avoid hitting the motorcycle, driver, and debris.
One of the most-common types of accidents involving motorcycles. A motorcyclist stops short on the freeway, but the vehicle behind them has not given themselves enough stopping distance to fully brake in time. Vehicle drivers can underestimate the space needed to stop when trailing a motorcycle.
On roads and highways with lanes moving in opposite directions, head-on collisions between motorcycles and other vehicles are most common. These are the most dangerous type of accidents for motorcyclists, and can result in serious injury or death for the rider.
A motorcycle making a left-hand turn at an intersection is at the greatest risk of a side-impact collision from a vehicle attempting to move through the intersection. An inattentive driver attempting to get through a yellow light may overlook a motorcycle making a lawful turn.
These types of accidents occur when another vehicle, not seeing the motorcycle in the lane next to them, switches lanes, hitting the motorcycle. This is all too common, since it is easy for a distracted driver to overlook a motorcycle moving in-and-out of their blindspot.
In a hit-and-run scenario, the vehicle hitting the motorcycle flees the scene without administering aid or exchanging information with the rider. In some cases, hit-and-run drivers of motorcyclists are impaired and driving under the influence at the time of the collision.
What is the financial fallout of motorcycle accidents?
A motorcycle accident that causes serious injuries for the rider can also lead to major medical costs, ranging from medical bills to the loss of income while the rider recovers. In the event that the rider is killed in the accident, their family faces the cost of the funeral and burial for their loved one, as well as the loss of income and support from the deceased.
As a comparative negligence law state, California allows insurers to reduce compensation to accident victims based on the degree of fault they shared in the accident. This rule—when paired with the built-in biases many have against motorcyclists—means that many accident victims end up receiving less in compensation for their injuries than they should.
As your Los Angeles motorcycle accident lawyer, the attorneys at Blair & Ramirez LLP are ready to stand with you and work to get you maximum compensation for the injuries you sustained as the victim of a motorcycle accident. For a free consultation, call us at (213) 568-4000.
Any contact between a vehicle and a motorcycle, at any speed, can be a dangerous and potentially deadly encounter for the rider. Here are some of the most common types of motorcycle accidents here in the Los Angeles area.
Choose Us To Represent Your Motorcycle Accident Case
Choosing Blair & Ramirez LLP for your motorcycle accident representation is a decision that brings expertise, commitment, and personalized attention to your case. Renowned for our thorough understanding of California's traffic laws, we bring a proven track record of securing substantial settlements and verdicts. Our approach combines aggressive advocacy with compassionate client care, ensuring that your rights are vigorously defended.
