A cyclist struck by a vehicle absorbs the impact directly, which is why bicycle claims so often involve fractures, head injuries, and long recoveries arising out of collisions the driver describes as minor.
The claim usually turns on right of way, on what the road surface itself contributed, and on which policies can respond, sometimes including the cyclist’s own auto policy. Margossian Law represents injured cyclists in California.
How These Collisions Actually Happen
Cyclists are rarely struck in the open. The recurring patterns are junction conflicts and the moments when a driver’s attention is somewhere other than where a bicycle is.
- A driver turning right across a cyclist traveling straight ahead
- A driver turning left across the path of an oncoming cyclist
- A car door opened into a bike lane without looking
- A vehicle pulling out from a driveway or side street
- A driver passing too closely, where California requires three feet or a safe speed reduction
- Road surface failures (potholes, missing grates, unmarked construction) on a road a public agency maintains
How Long You Have
Two deadlines govern most injury claims in California, and they are nothing like each other in length, and road surface is why the short one comes up so often for cyclists. A defect a car passes over without noticing, such as a broken edge, an unmarked trench, or a drainage grate set the wrong way, can be the entire cause of a bicycle crash, and where the road is maintained by a public agency a far shorter claim period applies.
6 months
To present a claim against a public entity
2 years
To file suit in most other cases
Your Own Auto Policy May Cover You on a Bicycle
This surprises most people. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy can apply when you are struck while cycling, since many policies extend it to an insured person rather than only to an occupant of the listed car. Whether it does, and to whom, is a question about the policy wording and your insured status under it. Medical payments coverage can also help with treatment while liability is still being sorted out, which prevents care being delayed while adjusters argue.
It is worth reading the policy rather than assuming it does not apply, particularly where the driver fled or carried minimum limits that a serious injury exhausts immediately.
What a Claim Can Recover
California recognizes two kinds of loss. Economic losses can be added up from records: treatment, lost income, the bicycle itself. Non-economic losses cannot be added up, which does not make them smaller: in a crash that leaves lasting pain or a fear of riding, they are frequently the larger figure.
Losses with receipts
- Medical treatment already received
- Treatment reasonably expected in future
- Income lost while unable to work
- Reduced ability to earn a living going forward
- The bicycle, helmet, and equipment damaged in the crash
- Out-of-pocket costs the injury forced on you
Losses without them
- Physical pain, during recovery and after it
- Emotional distress and its effects on daily life
- Disfigurement and permanent scarring
- Loss of enjoyment of the things you did before
- Loss of consortium, claimed by a spouse or domestic partner