Is Riding a Bike Safer than Driving?

Statistically, it’s not even close. Riding a bike is much less safe than driving. Bicyclists account for about 1 percent of vehicle traffic. But these riders account for 2 percent of roadway fatalities. That’s twice as high. Meanwhile, the chances of death or serious injury in a motor vehicle are relatively slim.

Safety statistics are meaningless to accident victims. Raw numbers don’t pay mounting medical bills or replace lost wages. They certainly don’t comfort accident victims and help them rebuild their shattered lives.

Only a Bicycle Accidents Lawyer in California does these things. Attorneys thoroughly review cases and determine all possible legal options. The planning process also includes day-to-day items. For example, most lawyers connect most victims with doctors who charge nothing upfront for their professional services. Above all else, attorneys treat clients like people, not statistics.

Why is Riding a Bicycle Less Safe Than Driving?

Seat belts, airbags, and other safety innovations have made four-wheel vehicles much safer today than they were in the 1960s or even the 1980s.

However, today’s cars and trucks are also much bigger and faster than in the past. The excessive weight and speed largely offset the aforementioned safety innovations, which is why vehicle collisions still kill or seriously injure millions of Americans every year. More on that below.

Bicycle design, on the other hand, hasn’t changed much since Baron Karl von Drais made the first bicycle, variously known as a swift walker, draisienne (balance bike), or running machine, in 1817.

So, unprotected bicycle riders are completely exposed to danger in a collision with a large, fast car or truck.

Vehicle Collision Injuries

The extreme force and extreme hazard of a bicycle collision in California usually causes serious or fatal injuries like:

• Spine Injuries: Spine injuries, such as pinched nerves or herniated discs, aren’t fatal. However, a severe spine injury triggers cataclysmic effects throughout the rest of the body, mostly cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. These secondary effects are often fatal.
• Head Injuries: Even if victims wear thin bicycle helmets, and the safety effects of helmets are largely overblown, head injuries are very common in bicycle wrecks. The motion, not the impact, usually causes such injuries. When riders fall off their bikes, their brains slam against the insides of their skulls. The multiple severe impacts usually cause brain bleeding and swelling which, in many cases, is fatal.
• Internal Injuries: Extreme motion also causes internal organs to smash and bump against one another. The impacts cause serious abrasions which, since internal organs don’t have protective skin layers, normally bleed badly. In fact, if bicycle crash victims survive the initial impact, their chances of making it to a hospital are slim, because of massive internal blood loss.

Victim size comes into play as well. Most bicycle crash victims are small children whose bodies cannot withstand very much trauma.

We should mention that car crash injuries are often almost as severe, if not more so. These victims still experience extreme force. No safety restraint system, no matter how advanced, can possibly absorb all that force.

Your Legal Options

Driver error causes over 90 percent of vehicle collisions. Four-wheel vehicle and bicycle crash victims alike normally have two legal options in these cases.

Generally, a personal injury lawyer uses the ordinary negligence theory to obtain compensation in these cases. In California, ordinary negligence has four basic elements:

• Duty: Most drivers have a duty of reasonable care. They must avoid accidents when possible. So, they must be at their best, physically and otherwise, when they get behind the wheel, and they must obey all the rules of the road.
• Breach: Common breaches of duty include operator impairment, like alcohol use, and aggressive driving, like speeding. A sip of wine at a religious ceremony or traveling 35 in a 30 probably isn’t a breach of duty. Anything greater than these trespasses is almost certainly a breach.
• Cause: The tortfeasor’s (negligent driver’s) conduct, or misconduct, must substantially cause the crash. If the victim’s negligence contributed to the wreck as well (e.g., Mike turned unsafely and Alice was drunk), the court may reduce the victim’s compensation in accordance with the percentage of fault.
• Damages: Normally, a victim must sustain a physical injury, no matter how slight, to obtain compensation for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages are available as well, in some extreme cases.

The negligence per se shortcut is available in some cases. Tortfeasors are liable for damages as a matter of law if they violate safety laws, like the DUI law or speed limit law, and that violation substantially causes injury. However, most emergency responders don’t issue citations in these cases. They view crashes as civil matters that don’t merit police involvement.

Extreme weather, like earthquakes, defective products, like defective tires, and defective road design cause most of the rest of the bicycle crashes in SoCal.

Connect with our personal injury lawyers today!

Riding a bike isn’t safer than driving. Fortunately, the law treats all crash victims equally. For a free consultation with a Personal Injury Attorney in California, contact the Law Offices of Eslamboly Hakim. Virtual, home, and hospital visits are available.

Credit: Photo by Midjourney