Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

A motorcycle crash is rarely a minor event. With no cage, no airbags, and no crumple zone around them, riders absorb the force of a collision with their own bodies — and the injuries are frequently catastrophic: road rash, broken bones, traumatic brain injury, and spinal damage that can change a life permanently. On top of the physical toll, an injured rider almost always faces something a car occupant does not: the assumption, from the insurance adjuster and often from a jury, that the person on the motorcycle must have been reckless. Boyadzhyan Legal Shield represents injured riders throughout Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, and we handle these cases on contingency — you pay no attorney's fee unless we recover for you.

Founding attorney Knarik Boyadzhyan brings a trial lawyer's discipline to serious-injury claims: building liability on real evidence, documenting the full extent of an injury and its future cost, and refusing to let an insurance company set the value of a person's recovery. That approach matters more in a motorcycle case than almost anywhere else, because the fight here is not only about what happened — it is about overcoming a prejudice that the driver who turned across a rider's path is counting on. We answer bias with facts: the physical evidence, the Vehicle Code violation, the reconstruction of the crash, and the medical record that ties every injury to the collision.

California law lets an injured rider recover for far more than the emergency-room bill. Medical care past and future, lost wages and lost earning capacity, motorcycle and gear damage, and non-economic harm — the pain, the disfigurement, the permanent limitation, the disruption to your life — are all compensable when another person's negligence caused the crash. What those damages are actually worth depends on the facts, the severity of the injury, and how well the case is proven. No lawyer can promise a result, but we can promise a claim built on evidence rather than on whatever an adjuster who has already blamed the rider is willing to concede.

This page explains what to do after a motorcycle crash, how we overcome anti-rider bias and prove the other driver's fault, what a claim may be worth, the deadlines that can end a case before it begins, and how we handle motorcycle matters locally in the Valley. It is general information about California law, not legal advice about your specific situation — for that, the consultation is free and confidential.

What you do in the minutes and days after a motorcycle crash can shape your health and your claim for years — and because the other side will start from the assumption that you were at fault, protecting the evidence early matters even more than it does in a car case. First, if you are able, get yourself out of the roadway and call 911. Serious injuries may leave you unable to do much at the scene, and your health comes first, but if you can, having police and paramedics respond creates the official record — the traffic collision report — that becomes an important part of the case later.

If your condition allows, or through someone helping you, gather what you can: the other driver's name, license, insurance, and vehicle information, and the names and phone numbers of any witnesses before they leave. Witnesses are especially valuable in motorcycle cases because they can rebut the driver's near-inevitable claim that the rider 'came out of nowhere.' Photograph everything — the vehicles and their positions, your motorcycle, the intersection or roadway, skid marks, traffic signals, license plates, your gear, and your visible injuries. Do not discard or repair your damaged bike, helmet, or gear: their condition is physical evidence of the force of the impact and of what protective equipment you were wearing.

Get medical care promptly, and follow through on it. Adrenaline masks pain, and injuries like concussions, internal bleeding, and soft-tissue damage frequently do not announce themselves for hours or days. A gap between the crash and your first treatment is the argument insurers use most often to claim you were not really hurt, so prompt care protects both your health and your claim, and it creates the medical record that ties your injuries to the collision.

Two things to avoid. Do not admit fault or apologize at the scene — fault is a legal question that depends on facts you may not have, and an off-the-cuff 'I'm sorry' can be twisted into an admission that fits the story the insurer already wants to tell about riders. And do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurance company, or accept a quick settlement, before you have spoken with a lawyer: those recorded statements are taken to lock you into an account before the full extent of your injuries is even known. You must report the crash to your own insurer as your policy requires, but you can and should get advice before you are recorded.

Almost every California motorcycle claim is built on negligence — the failure to use reasonable care behind the wheel. Civil Code § 1714 sets the basic rule that everyone is responsible for injury caused to another by their want of ordinary care. To recover, we show that the other driver owed you a duty to drive carefully, that they breached it, that the breach caused the crash, and that you suffered real harm. A violation of the Vehicle Code — failing to yield on a left turn, an unsafe lane change, following too closely — is powerful evidence of that breach. What makes a motorcycle case different is not the law; it is the prejudice layered on top of it, and overcoming that prejudice is central to the work.

Lane-splitting is the issue insurers most often try to weaponize. In California, lane-splitting — riding between rows of stopped or slow-moving traffic — is legal. Vehicle Code § 21658.1 defines lane splitting and directs the California Highway Patrol to develop safety guidelines, and the practice is legal in California, which means the fact that a rider was splitting lanes does not, by itself, make the rider at fault. A driver who changes lanes into a splitting rider without looking, or who opens a door into that space, can still be the negligent party. We make sure a lawful, legal maneuver is not misrepresented to a jury as recklessness.

The helmet law is the other issue the defense reaches for. California has a universal helmet law: Vehicle Code § 27803 requires every motorcycle rider and passenger to wear a US DOT-compliant helmet. If you were wearing a helmet, that fact simply removes the argument. If a helmet question does arise, its relevance is narrow — it can only bear on the specific injuries a helmet could have affected, typically head injuries, and it does nothing to excuse the driver whose negligence caused the crash in the first place. A helmet issue is not a defense to liability, and we do not let it be treated as one.

California follows a 'pure comparative fault' rule, and insurers use it hard against riders. If you are found partly at fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault — but you are not barred from recovering, even if you were mostly at fault. Being assigned 20 percent of the blame does not end your claim; it reduces it by 20 percent. Because adjusters routinely try to pin an inflated share of fault on the rider — that is exactly what the bias is for — proving the driver's negligence clearly and rebutting an unfair fault argument is often the difference between a fair recovery and a discounted one. Liability may also extend beyond the driver: an employer whose employee caused the crash, or a government entity responsible for a dangerous road, can share responsibility, and identifying every liable party and policy is one of the most valuable parts of building the claim.

There is no chart that spits out the value of a motorcycle-accident claim, and any lawyer who quotes a number before understanding your injuries is guessing. What is different about motorcycle cases is the severity: because a rider is unprotected, the injuries tend toward the catastrophic end — multiple fractures, extensive road rash and skin grafts, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord damage, internal injuries, and amputation — and those injuries carry costs that stretch across a lifetime. Valuing the claim well means valuing that future, not just the present.

California divides compensable harm into two categories. Economic damages are the measurable financial losses — past and future medical bills, lost wages and lost earning capacity, the repair or replacement of your motorcycle and gear, and other out-of-pocket costs. For a serious injury these are proven with records, bills, pay history, and expert testimony projecting what ongoing surgery, rehabilitation, and long-term care will cost over the years to come. A catastrophic injury can also reduce or end what you are able to earn, and lost earning capacity is often one of the largest economic components of the claim.

Non-economic damages compensate the human cost that no receipt captures — physical pain, emotional distress, disfigurement and permanent scarring, and the loss of the ability to do the things you used to enjoy. California does not use a rigid formula for pain and suffering; its value depends on the severity and permanence of the injury, how it has changed your daily life, and how credibly and completely that impact is documented. In a serious motorcycle case, where scarring and permanent limitation are common, this is frequently the largest part of the claim, and it is where thorough medical proof and honest, well-supported testimony matter most.

Two situations deserve special mention. If the at-fault driver had no insurance or fled the scene, your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage can provide the compensation the other driver cannot — a claim you paid premiums for and are entitled to pursue, and one that matters especially when catastrophic injuries far exceed a minimum policy. And because settling ends the case, we work to document the full arc of an injury before resolving a claim: once you settle, there is no coming back for more if the injury turns out to be worse than the insurer was willing to admit.

California sets firm deadlines for bringing an injury claim, and missing one generally ends the case no matter how strong it is. For most motorcycle-accident injury claims the statute of limitations is two years from the date of the crash under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. A claim for vehicle or property damage alone has a longer window, but where you were injured, the two-year deadline is the one that controls, and it is not something to test — filing late is one of the few mistakes that cannot be fixed.

A different and much shorter deadline applies when a government entity may be responsible — a city or county vehicle, a state vehicle, or a dangerous condition on a public road, which is a live issue in the road-hazard and defective-pavement crashes that put riders down. Under Government Code § 911.2, you generally must present a written claim to the public entity within six months of the incident before you can even file a lawsuit, and the procedural rules are strict. Because it is not always obvious at the scene that a government entity is involved, these deadlines are a strong reason to get advice early rather than assume you have two full years.

There are limited circumstances that can change these timelines in either direction — for example, claims involving a minor, or situations where an injury was not immediately discoverable — but they are exceptions, not the rule, and they are fact-specific. The safe course is never to rely on having 'plenty of time.' The sooner a claim is evaluated, the more of the fragile motorcycle-case evidence can be preserved and the less risk there is of a deadline quietly running out. This is general information, not legal advice about your particular deadline, which should be confirmed with an attorney.

Boyadzhyan Legal Shield is based in Encino on Ventura Boulevard and represents injured riders throughout the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles — Encino, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Van Nuys, Woodland Hills, Studio City, Northridge, and the surrounding communities. We know the roads these crashes happen on, from the US-101 (Ventura Freeway) and the I-405 to the length of Ventura Boulevard and the busy Valley intersections where left-turn collisions with riders are a daily danger — and the canyon roads riders take through the Santa Monica Mountains, where a single patch of debris or a driver crossing the line can be catastrophic.

That local knowledge is practical, not decorative. Knowing how traffic moves through a particular interchange, where the cameras are, how a specific canyon road bends, and how a stretch of the 101 or the 405 tends to back up helps us reconstruct what happened and anticipate the arguments an insurer will make — including the rider-bias arguments they make in every one of these cases. When a motorcycle case cannot be settled fairly and has to be filed, San Fernando Valley civil matters are generally heard at the Van Nuys Courthouse, and we appear in Van Nuys and the surrounding Los Angeles County courts.

Working from a single Encino office keeps the firm close to the clients and communities it serves. You work directly with the attorney handling your case — not a rotating cast at a high-volume settlement mill — and because we take these cases on contingency, strong representation is available regardless of your financial situation. The consultation is free, and you owe no attorney's fee unless we recover for you.