Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

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're 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.

Some of this runs longer than a practice page can carry. Our guide to what to do after a motorcycle accident in California covers where the bike, helmet, and gear actually end up after a crash, who controls whether they are repaired or scrapped, and which reports have to be filed and with whom.

Get medical care promptly, and follow through on it. Whether you feel hurt at the scene is a question for a doctor rather than something to decide at the roadside. A gap between the crash and your first treatment is the argument insurers use most often to claim you weren't 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're recorded.

Almost every California motorcycle claim is built on negligence — the failure to use reasonable care behind the wheel. Civil Code § 1714 (opens in new window) 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 (opens in new window) defines it and directs the California Highway Patrol to develop safety guidelines, 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 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 (opens in new window) 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 don't let it be treated as one.

California's comparative fault rule reduces a recovery by the injured person's share of the blame rather than barring it, and insurers use that hard against riders. Adjusters routinely try to pin an inflated share of fault on the rider — that's exactly what the bias is for — so proving the driver's negligence clearly and rebutting an unfair fault argument is central to a motorcycle case.

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's 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.

A rider's losses run from the measurable — medical bills, lost wages and lost earning capacity, the repair or replacement of the motorcycle and gear — to the harms no receipt captures. Our guide to what damages a California injury claim can cover sets out how each category is proven.

What tends to distinguish a serious motorcycle case is permanence: the scarring and disfigurement road rash leaves behind, lasting limitation, and a catastrophic injury that can reduce or end what a rider is able to earn. Documenting that over time rather than at one appointment is where these claims are won or lost. How future care and lost earning capacity are calculated and proved is set out in full on our traumatic brain injury page, where those questions come up hardest.

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's no coming back for more if the injury turns out to be worse than the insurer was willing to admit.

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 (opens in new window), and filing late is one of the few mistakes that cannot be fixed. Our guide to California personal-injury deadlines covers the situations that can change that period.

A much shorter six-month deadline applies when a government entity may be responsible, which is a live issue in the road-hazard and defective-pavement crashes that put riders down. Those claims are covered on our government liability page, and because it's rarely obvious at the scene that a public entity is involved, they are a strong reason to get advice early.

Never 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. The initial consultation is free, confidential, and carries no obligation to hire the firm.