{"id":1162,"date":"2016-07-28T17:16:19","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T17:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nelsonboydlaw.com\/blog\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2021-09-02T21:57:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T21:57:22","slug":"motorcycle-insurance-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nelsonboydlaw.com\/blog\/legal-tips\/motorcycle-insurance-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorcycle Insurance Claims – What Do I Need to Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mountains-844871_960_720\"<\/a>It\u2019s a tragic truth that in a contest between 2 wheels\/400 pounds and 4 wheels\/4,000 pounds, bikes take a beating. Is there anything better than riding a powerful motorcycle through the mountains at sunrise or through the open country on a hot summer afternoon? The sound of the bike, the feel of the wind, the sense of being in the open that you never get in the closed cocoon of a car: that\u2019s why you \u201clive to ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we can\u2019t ignore the \u201cride to live\u201d part of the equation. Unfortunately, motorcycle riders aren\u2019t the ones that usually cause wrecks. We ride in an environment where those big steel bullets that surround us are piloted by people that are tired, distracted, impaired, and less-than-fully abled. Cell phones, texting, megawatt sound systems, and GPS units with big screens and talking commands are constant distractions, not to mention talkative passengers, fussy children in back-seat car seats, drivers who don\u2019t remember when Bill Clinton was President or who remember when FDR was and, always, alcohol-soaked drivers (as many as 10% of the drivers on the road during certain hours and days), darkness, and bad weather.<\/p>\n

Against all this, all a rider has is his\/her wits, superior visibility, superior handling, superior acceleration and braking, and their safety equipment. The bottom line is that it will always be less important to the driver of a car to avoid a wreck with a motorcycle than it will be to the rider.<\/p>\n

Many drivers consider riding a motorcycle to be dangerous \u2013 which is quite ironic given that cars are the primary danger. Unfortunately, many of those drivers feel that someone who undertakes the completely legal act of operating a motorcycle on the road is \u201cassuming the risk\u201d of whatever happens to them. Again, this is completely contrary to the law. You can\u2019t help but wonder, however, if these negative opinions don\u2019t actually influence the way some drivers drive. If you believe riders are \u201casking to get hurt,\u201d then how hard are you going to work not to hurt them?<\/p>\n

What can you do about this? As a part of Boyd Trial Consulting, we conduct interactive focus groups in motorcycle cases. A question that we constantly ask our mock jurors is: WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A \u201cGOOD\u201d or \u201cSAFE\u201d MOTORCYCLIST?<\/strong> Over and over, those jurors indicate that the more of these characteristics a motorcyclist had, the less fault they would assign to the motorcycle operator or passenger involved in a collision. It is, in fact, a good list on how to be safe while riding a bike:<\/p>\n