Types of Recoverable Damages From a Bicycle Accident Case

When a bicyclist has an accident they are vulnerable to severe injuries. Bicycle helmets protect against some types of head injuries, but they cannot always prevent internal trauma to the brain caused by a significant bump, shake, or blow that causes the brain to bump or twist against the bony inside of the skull. In addition, the remainder of the cyclist’s body often makes direct impact with the road, a car, or other obstacles in a crash. Serious trauma in a bicycle accident causes serious injuries with physical and financial consequences to the injury victim and their family. These consequences are known as “damages” in a bicycle accident claim.

Damages in bicycle accidents and other injury claims are divided into two categories: economic and non-economic damages.

Types of Injuries Associated With Bicycle Accidents

When a bicyclist and a motorist have a collision, the exposed bike rider is vulnerable to extreme injuries including the following:

• Traumatic head injuries
• Multiple fractures
• Single fractures
• Back injuries
• Neck injuries
• Spinal cord damage
• Internal organ damage
• Crush injuries
• Soft tissue damage
• Road rash abrasions
• Limb loss
• Disfiguring facial injuries

The impact of a bicycle accident has long-lasting repercussions on the victim’s life.

What Economic Damages Are Available in Bicycle Accident Claims?

Serious injuries become expensive to treat, causing financial hardship for many injury victims and their families. Economic damages after a bicycle accident are tangible and easy to calculate. Economic damages to bicycle accident victims include the following:

• Medical expenses
• Future medical expenses for further treatment, procedures, and rehabilitation when required
• Related expenses
• Lost income
• Future income loss
• Diminished future earning capacity due to accident-caused disability

A personal injury attorney carefully calculates the bicycle accident victim’s damages to maximize the amount they recover for their economic losses after an accident. If a bicycle accident causes death, the decedent’s close family members can recover compensation in a wrongful death claim or lawsuit.

What are Non-Economic Damages After a Bicycle Accident?

Economic damages may be easy to calculate, but an injury victim’s non-economic damages are usually the most devastating impacts of a serious accident. Examples of non-economic damages include compensation for the following:

• Pain and suffering (the most common non-economic damages)
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Loss of consortium (the ability to enjoy a full emotional and physical relationship with a loved one
• Loss of household services
• Disfigurement
• Traumatic loss of limb
• PTSD/Anxiety/Depression and other emotional damages

Although financial compensation doesn’t erase non-economic damages like pain and suffering or trauma, it is the civil court’s only means of offering redress to victims for these serious consequences of another party’s negligence or recklessness. It can substantially increase the amount of a settlement or jury award to the victim.

Compensation for economic and non-economic damages typically comes to the victim from the liable party’s insurance policy. In most cases, this is an auto insurance policy when an at-fault driver causes an accident with a bicyclist. Less commonly, the at-fault party could be the manufacturer of a defective auto part or a negligent road maintenance agency.

A skilled bicycle accident attorney will take the time to consult with medical experts and therapists to prove the powerful impact of pain and suffering and other non-economic damages on the victim’s life.