May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, so I thought I’d write a blog on motorcycle personal injury cases. Specifically, I’d like to tell you about three factors I have seen that make motorcycle crash cases better.
Our firm has been practicing personal injury law in Kansas City for nearly a decade and has handled many motorcycle crash cases. Hopefully, these tips will also help you stay safe and healthy while driving your motorcycle.
Wear a helmet.
Although this may seem obvious from a safety perspective, from a legal perspective the benefits are a little different.
If you were not wearing your helmet at the time of the crash, the other driver’s insurance company and lawyer will try to use it against you. Not only that, they will use it as an excuse to avoid compensating you no matter how negligent their insured or client was. They will claim your failure to wear a helmet made your injuries worse and shows you are irresponsible, and may even deny responsibility on their insured’s behalf because of it.
Take a motorcycle driving class.
From a legal perspective, this will show you are a responsible motorcycle driver who follows the rules. This will deprive the defense of the ability to claim comparative fault or weaken it significantly. This will make the value of your case increase and give you a better chance of a significant verdict if you have to try your case.
Keep your bike well-maintained with all of your service records.
Again, from a case perspective, this increases the value of your case by showing you are a responsible biker.
It also deprives the at-fault driver’s lawyer of the common defense of mechanical defects. Defense lawyers in motorcycle crash cases will be on the lookout for problems with your bike in order to avoid responsibility. A well-maintained bike with records preserved shows that there was nothing wrong with it.These are just a few things you can do to increase the value of your motorcycle crash case, but also to help you avoid getting into a crash in the first place. As always, we stand ready to answer your questions. Feel free to contact our firm at any time.