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Cruising down the open road on your motorcycle is a fun, relaxing way to spend an afternoon. Unfortunately, careless drivers can make riding a motorcycle highly dangerous, even for the most cautious and experienced of motorcyclists.
When a car, truck, or other vehicle strikes a motorcyclist on the highways or back roads of Texas, the rider might suffer serious, disabling, or tragically fatal injuries. Our lawyers can help you bring a claim for compensation through insurance, or even through a lawsuit and trial if needed.
Call The Queenan Law Firm’s Dallas motorcycle accident lawyers today at (817) 476-1797 for a free review of your case.
Common Causes of Motorcycle Crashes in Dallas
Many collisions are preventable and occur because of other drivers’ careless mistakes. However, while driving errors are a common cause of avoidable crashes, recklessness and negligence can also take other forms.
Driver Negligence or Recklessness
In situations where a collision or other type of accident occurs because of recklessness or negligence, the victim may be entitled to compensation from the party who was at fault for causing the crash or collision, including compensation for medical bills.
Common Violations
Often, negligence occurs when a driver violates an explicit traffic law or otherwise drives unsafely. Some examples include
- Speeding
- Drowsy driving
- Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
- Failing to check side mirrors or rearview mirrors for motorcyclists
- Failing to come to a complete stop at stop signs
- Getting distracted by text messages, radio stations, smartphone apps, food, beverages, makeup, road construction, or other distractions
- Making improper left turns across traffic
- Running stoplights
Other Causes
Rarely, accidents might occur when a manufacturing error or design flaw causes a motorcycle part to be defective, giving rise to a product liability claim. Similarly, some accidents are caused by a flaw or defect in the road itself.
In these cases, our lawyers can help you include other outside parties in the case or potentially bring the case solely against them for single-motorcycle crashes.
Common Motorcycle Accident Injuries in Dallas
Many motorcycling accidents produce serious, disabling, and sometimes lethal injuries.
Types of motorcycle injuries our legal team handles include, but are not limited to
- Broken bones
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Back injuries
- Spinal cord injuries and paralysis
- Eye injuries
- Road rash
- And more.
Back Injuries
Back injuries might involve vertebral fractures (fractured spine), bulging discs, and herniated discs. Victims might sustain facial injuries that cause permanent scars, mouth injuries, vision loss, and fractured cheekbones.
Smaller Injuries Add Up
Other injuries, like broken fingers, sprained wrists, whiplash, and scarring, are also common among motorcycle accident victims in Dallas. These injuries can add up to high dollar medical bills and pain and suffering, even if each individual injury is small.
How Safety Gear Affects Motorcycle Crashes
Even when motorcyclists wear the proper safety gear, like helmets, goggles, gloves, boots, jackets, and pants, they might still be injured. Though wearing a helmet might lower your chances of sustaining a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle crash, such injuries might still occur.
If you are missing any safety gear, the defense might try to blame you for that. The only safety gear you must wear is a helmet, and that requirement has plenty of exceptions. When missing a helmet, it could be used as proof of comparative negligence in some cases, allowing the defense to argue the damages should be reduced because you contributed to the accident or injury.
Dallas Motorcycle Accident and Injury Statistics
Fortunately, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) publishes annual reports of traffic accidents throughout the state, including motorcycle accidents. Reviewing this data can help motorcyclists understand the true dangers they might face if involved in an accident in Dallas.
Number of Accidents
According to TxDOT, there were 562 motorcycle accident fatalities in Texas in 2022. Of those fatalities, 39% of victims were not wearing helmets at the time of the accident. The majority of motorcycle accidents that resulted in fatalities that year, 322 of them, occurred in more urban settings, like Dallas.
Safety Gear Statistics
Of the thousands of motorcycle accidents that happen in Dallas and throughout Texas each year, many lead to serious injuries. Even when wearing the necessary safety gear, like helmets, riders might still sustain life-altering injuries.
This can be seen by the fact that 315 of the motorcyclists who died in accidents in 2022 in Texas were wearing helmets at the time of their collisions. Of the total motorcycle accidents that led to suspected serious injuries, just over half of victims were wearing helmets at the time.
Factors to Consider When Assessing the Value of a Dallas Motorcycle Accident Claim
Before entering into litigation with a negligent party over a motorcycle accident, it is important to determine the value of your case so that you know what to expect regarding your recovery.
Every Accident is Unique
Every accident involves a unique set of factors and details that impact the ultimate value of a settlement or award. These factors include, but are not limited to
- The extent and severity of your injuries
- The extent to which your earning ability is affected by your injuries
- Whether your injuries are of a permanently disabling nature
- Whether your injuries have or will produce permanent scarring
- The income you lost due to being out of work and receiving treatment after your accident
- The amount of medical care you will require in the future.
If the victim of a Dallas motorcycle crash can prove that their injuries resulted from another driver’s actions or the other driver’s failures to act, compensation may be awarded for both financial and non-financial losses, including losses expected to arise in the future.
Evaluating Motorcycle Accident Settlement Offers in Dallas
It is fairly uncommon for personal injury claims to go all the way to trial. It is more typical to resolve a Texas motorcycle injury claim by negotiating a settlement outside of court, a process that may take several months or longer. We will help you navigate these negotiations and determine when and if they are stalling.
Initial Offers
At the onset of settlement negotiations, initial offers from negligent drivers are almost sure to be low. Defendants often do this to minimize the amount they ultimately have to pay to injured motorcyclists. If you accept this first offer, you most likely will not be able to pursue further recovery in the future.
Comparing to Damages
When evaluating settlement offers, our motorcycle accident lawyers will compare them to our calculation of your damages. If an offer is insufficient, we can present a counteroffer supported by evidence.
Stronger Cases May Be Worth More
Leveraging the evidence collected during our investigation into your case might convince the defendant to settle at a higher amount.
Trial
Unfortunately, some parties are unwilling to settle and would rather take their chances in court. If this happens to be true in your situation, we can help you present your case in front of a jury.
How Our Lawyers Help
Our attorneys will analyze your claim from every angle to determine what sort of legal strategy is ideal for protecting you and your family’s financial interests. Our goal is to help you recover as much compensation as possible for your injuries.
Proving Fault in a Dallas Motorcycle Crash Lawsuit
Like most states, Texas is a fault insurance state for auto accidents. In order to be compensated for a motorcycle accident injury in Dallas, a crash victim must be able to prove that the other driver acted with either negligence or recklessness.
Negligence
Most personal injury claims involve one or more defendants who acted negligently. Negligence is a legal term that describes a failure to take the precautions that a reasonable person would take in order to reduce the risk of a foreseeable accident occurring.
Elements
To prove negligence, you must show the defendant’s conduct met these four elements:
- Duty – They owed you a legal duty. This is usually based on general reasonableness or on specific traffic laws.
- Breach – They violated the duty.
- Causation – That violation caused your crash.
- Damages – You suffered damages. Injuries themselves qualify, but you likely also have economic damages.
Gross Negligence
Gross negligence describes an extreme form of negligence for which a certain type of compensation called punitive damages may be available.
Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages seek to punish the other driver, while also acting as a deterrent.
Recklessness
You may be familiar with the term “reckless driving.” However, “recklessness” is not merely a descriptive term, as it has a legal definition. A person acts with recklessness when he or she is aware of but knowingly disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk – in short, when a person ignores a known risk which is not justified by the circumstances at hand.
Burden of Proof
Similar to a prosecutor in a criminal trial, the claimant or plaintiff has the “burden of proof,” which means they are responsible for proving that the other party acted with negligence or recklessness and was at fault for the accident.
Evidence Used
This process of proving fault may draw on various forms of physical and non-physical evidence, including but not limited to accident footage, crash site photographs, expert testimony, medical records, statements from eyewitnesses, wreck analysis, and more.
Recoverable Damages in Dallas Motorcycle Accident Lawsuits
Compensatory and punitive damages may be available to motorcycle injury victims in Dallas, depending on the details of their claims. Compensatory damages seek to make victims whole again following accidents, while punitive damages seek to punish defendants for their gross negligence.
Economic Damages
Economic damages can cover an injury victim’s financial losses, such as medical bills and lost income. Examples of economic damages could include costs related to or arising from things like
- Ambulance transportation
- Crutches
- Canes
- Walkers
- Wheelchairs
- Braces
- Other medical devices
- Hospitalization
- Loss of benefits
- Loss of income, wages, or other earnings
As you incur losses, provide records of them to our lawyers. This can allow us to more accurately calculate your economic damages and provide proof of them to the jury in your case. Economic damages are not limited in injury victims in Dallas.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages try to compensate a crash survivor for their non-financial losses, such as the pain and suffering experienced by the accident victim. Non-economic damages include compensation for, where applicable
- Physical pain
- Mental suffering
- Emotional distress
- Disfigurement
- Inconvenience
- Loss of companionship and society
- Loss of consortium
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Mental anguish
- Physical impairment or loss of function
- Lost enjoyment
- Lost ability
Proving non-economic damages requires different tactics than proving economic damages, as pain and suffering does not have a price tag. Because of this, our motorcycle accident lawyers may encourage you to see a mental health professional or otherwise document your emotional difficulties so that we can successfully demonstrate your reduced quality of life following a motorcycle crash in Dallas. There are no limits on how much juries can award victims in non-economic damages in Texas.
Punitive Damages
You may be awarded punitive damages at trial if you were injured because of gross negligence while riding your motorcycle in Dallas. Punitive damages are only awarded by juries when cases go to trial.
According to Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.008(b), punitive damages in Texas are capped at $200,000 or twice the economic damages awarded, plus up to $750,000 in awarded non-economic damages, whichever amount is greater. Punitive damages are not guaranteed for all motorcycle injury victims in Dallas.
FAQs for Motorcycle Accidents in Dallas
What Kind of Lawyer Do I Need?
Our Dallas personal injury lawyers handle all kinds of injury and auto accident cases, including motorcycle accidents. Lawyers – like ours – who have experience with motorcycle cases often have a better handle on what kinds of arguments and damages are involved.
Can I Use Insurance Instead of Going to Court?
Many motorcycle accident cases are ultimately paid through insurance. However, you should negotiate your claim with the help of a lawyer instead of trusting the insurance companies to get the damages right.
In many cases, we file a lawsuit to help put pressure on the defense, get us access to additional evidence through discovery, and to you leave a backup route if they refuse to pay your full value. We can settle a claim at any point, even after filing in court, so do not be afraid of “going to court” to get your full damages.
Does My Insurance Cover My Crash?
Some motorcycle riders carry optional insurance that can help cover their damages, such as medical payment coverage. However, this is unlikely to cover all of your damages and usually leaves off coverage for pain and suffering entirely.
To get full damages, you often have to file a claim against the at-fault driver or even take them to court.
Where Do I File My Case?
Most crashes in Dallas happen within Dallas County. However, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Metroplex area might see crashes in nearby counties like Tarrant. Usually, your lawsuit is filed in the county where the crash happened.
Insurance claims can be filed by calling the insurance company or even filed online in most cases, but our lawyers will typically need to get on the phone and even send letters to negotiate your claim and make our demands known. Let us file your case for you.
How is Fault Determined?
When the insurance company is handling the case, they decide fault through their own investigations. When the case goes to court, the jury looks at the totality of the circumstances to decide who was at fault.
For someone to be at fault, they must have met all four elements of negligence (duty, breach, causation, and damages). Any at-fault parties can share a portion of the blame, and courts also decide who shares what percentage of the fault and damages.
Can I Recover if I Was Partially at Fault
Often, yes. In Texas, the rule is that you cannot recover if you were over 50% at fault. That means anyone with up to 50% fault for their own accident can still recover the share of damages the other drivers caused under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001.
Do I Need to Wear a Helmet?
Texas law requires anyone under 21 to wear a helmet on a motorcycle.
If you are over 21, you can opt not to wear a helmet if you prove you have sufficient health insurance or bond. However, our lawyers always recommend protecting yourself as much as possible – both physically and legally – by wearing a helmet any time you are on a motorcycle.
Are There Special Laws for Motorcycles?
Motorcycles follow most of the same rules for cars and trucks. The only real differences are for licensure, insurance, and safety gear. Make sure you are properly licensed before riding a motorcycle in Texas.
How Long Do I Have to File?
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003, you have 2 years to file your claim. There are some exceptions that can extend the filing deadline, but they are unlikely to apply to motorcycle accident cases, so call our lawyers as soon as you can.
What is My Claim Worth?
Every case is unique. Motorcycle accidents are often more severe than car accidents and can involve very high-dollar claims.
You can estimate your damages by starting with the basics: medical bills, vehicle damage, and lost wages. If your injuries are moderate, estimate about double that amount for pain and suffering; for more severe injuries, estimate three to five times your economic damages as pain and suffering.
Have our lawyers help calculate more specific damages.
Do I Need a Lawyer
Yes! Legally, you can represent yourself, but practically, it is difficult. It may be hard to believe a lawyer when they say you should get a lawyer, but it is important to have a lawyer for four major reasons:
- You are injured and may not be able to handle filing an insurance claim or lawsuit on your own.
- You should have an experienced attorney put a value on your case so you do not miss damages.
- We have experience negotiating claims and taking them to trial, so you should rely on us.
- The defendant likely will have a lawyer provided through their insurance, so you should have one, too.
Review Your Claim with Our Dallas Motorcycle Crash Attorneys Today
To get help with your case from The Queenan Law Firm, call our motorcycle accident lawyers now at (817) 476-1797.