Top Causes of Motorcycle Crashes

Hi there, my name is John Cooper, and I’m a personal injury lawyer with the firm of Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers. We handle cases all across Virginia but especially here in my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia and in the Hampton Roads area. So today’s topic is motorcycle accidents. I have handled hundreds of motorcycle crashes in my career and there’s some very obvious common elements that happen. One of them is the automobile driver will say, “Oh, I didn’t see you,” and it’s completely silly because they have an obligation to see you just like they would another car, but for whatever reason people often fail to see the motorcyclist and use that as an excuse. And by the way, it is no excuse; if you don’t see what there is to see on the road, you are at fault if you cause a wreck.

So the other thing that we see all the time is one of the most common motorcycle wreck scenarios is the motorcyclist is going straight and planning to take a left-hand turn, the other car, the cars come in the opposite direction and um the motorcyclist in that situation, I’m assuming there is not a light that has a turn arrow, that sort of thing, they have to yield to the cars that are there. But if the cars are way down the road, the motorcyclist has the right to take that left turn.

What ends up happening is, a lot of times, the cars are speeding, and they don’t see the motorcyclist, and they just careen into the motorcyclist, who at that point may have the right of way because they’re already out into the intersection in a vulnerable position. And if the car is speeding even a mile an hour over the limit, they have forfeited the right of way, and there’s a specific rule that says that. So, you know, the motorcyclist is entitled to assume that the car is going to see them, that the car is going to be going the speed limit, and that the car is going to do whatever is necessary to avoid a collision, but so many times we see this um scenario of the motorcyclist taking a lawful left-hand turn, the car speeding come the other way and hits them and obviously the effects are devastating.

The sad thing about motorcycle accidents is even with your helmet and all of the right equipment, you know, the kinds of injuries that happen are often much worse- broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, terrible scarring from uh road burns, and uh, these are uh tragic accidents. If you have been in a motorcycle accident or you have a loved one who was, please give us a call; we’d be happy to help. We’re happy to come to the hospital room if that’s what you’d like us to do. We also can sign people up using DocuSign and electronic methods, so we want to make it easy for you to get our help, and we hope you’ll call us: 757-333-3333.