What to Check After a Motorcycle Crash

Motorcycles can provide the opportunity to explore and see beautiful vistas across the country. But riding a motorcycle comes at a cost—the risk of a serious accident. For instance, Florida saw a total of 8,031 motorcycle crashes in one year, according to the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FHSMV). Because of these accidents, 517 people died.

Unfortunately, motorcycle riding is riskier than driving other vehicles. Cars, trucks, and other vehicles all outweigh motorcycles by tons. Motorcyclists are comparatively unprotected in a crash, especially in states that do not require a protective helmet for all riders. Even where such a mandate doesn’t exist, all motorcyclists should wear helmets, which are the most important equipment for reducing fatal accidents.

Motorcycle accidents are painful, frightening, disorienting, and tend to result in financial havoc. And they can happen in a flash. An SUV driver doesn’t even register your presence as they pull over right into your lane. A driver opens a car door directly into your path. Gravel on a roadway causes you to spin out. Because motorcycle crashes can happen so quickly and unexpectedly, and their consequences can be so expensive, riders must know what to do after one.

Check Your Safety

Immediately after a motorcycle accident, you should focus on your safety. A motorcycle crash can place you directly in the line of fire of oncoming traffic, or other precarious positions, such as an exposed position on the shoulder of a highway.

The first thing to do is to move to safety. If it is safe and you can do so, move your motorcycle as well, especially if it’s in a position where it could impede other traffic. If you can’t move or moving might injure you, call for help, and get police and emergency medical services on the scene.

Your Medical Condition and Health Immediately After The Accident

Motorcyclists should always carry a phone or have some other way to get emergency help in the event of a crash. Motorcycle accidents are more likely to cause severe and fatal injuries. If they do not, they almost certainly will cause some injuries, such as cuts and bruises, which a doctor should treat as soon as possible so they don’t worsen.

If you are severely injured, call 911 if you can. Other motorists should also summon aid if someone is injured. If you are not injured but someone else is, you should also call 911, of course. If emergency response teams arrive and determine you should leave by ambulance, comply with their instructions. Don’t worry about responsibility for somebody else’s accident or your cycle. Your health must come first; nothing else matters if you don’t survive.

If you sustain an injury where response teams either don’t think you need to go for emergency treatment or nobody calls for emergency response, stay on the scene until law enforcement indicates you can leave (see next section).

But you need to see a doctor or go to the emergency room as soon as possible after the accident. This is true even if your injuries seem minor (road rash, for example) or you don’t feel injured at all.

Why? For several reasons.

The first, and of paramount importance, is safety and health. In plenty of motorcycle accident cases, victims didn’t feel injured, though they were—even fatally. The body doesn’t always register pain and distress immediately.

In a motorcycle accident, you’re may experience an adrenaline spike, which often blocks out pain. You may feel fine but wake up the day after nearly unable to move or seeing double. Furthermore, many injuries don’t present symptoms immediately. A mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), for example, may not feel like anything—but can end with severe consequences. Broken ribs may feel like bruises, but are potentially fatal, such as if they are fractured and cause internal bleeding. Mild-seeming injuries can turn worse if not treated. Bruises, cuts, and even road rash can harbor worse internal injuries or (in the case of cuts and road rash) lead to infection.

Only a doctor can examine you and run diagnostic tests to determine the extent of your injuries. Describe what happened so the doctor can do an appropriate exam.

See a doctor or receive emergency treatment for purposes of recovering compensation.

To ensure insurance will cover your medical care after an accident, you need to make sure to avoid any missteps that could give them a reason to deny or minimize your claim. If someone else caused the accident, they may bear responsibility for those bills. Their insurance company may try to avoid liability, however, if they find out you never sought medical care after the crash.

Why? Because insurance companies are in the business of making a profit, not of helping injured people. Paying out insurance claims subtracts from potential profits, so they tend to find any excuse they can think of to avoid paying claims. To them, the fact that you didn’t seek medical attention after a motorcycle accident means either that you weren’t as badly hurt as you say or that you are responsible for the extent of your injuries. They might even allege that the crash didn’t injury you or that another event in between the accident and when you finally sought medical treatment caused your injuries.

The bottom line: even if you don’t feel injured, seek out a thorough examination.

Here is a brief list of potential injuries caused by motorcycle accidents.

• Cuts
• Bruises
• Road rash
• Soft tissue injuries (whiplash)
• Sprains
• Broken bones
• Internal injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Burns
• Amputations
• Loss of or injury to organs (such as eyes)
• Neck injuries
• Coma
• Death

Follow Medical Treatment Plans

After you see a doctor, receive and understand any medical plans for treatment, and follow them. If your physician wants you to take prescription medication, for example, get the prescription filled and take the medication according to directions. If the doctor advises you to see a surgeon or a physical therapist, make those appointments and keep them.

The primary reason is to get better. Following your doctor’s recommendations will help you heal and recover. But this is another case where you can protect yourself against insurance companies that would try to minimize or deny your claim. If they find out that you failed to follow your doctor’s orders, they can again try to argue that you were not hurt as badly as you claim, or that you exacerbated your injuries by failing to get prescribed treatment.

Look into Who May Bear Responsibility for the Accident

In the confusing aftermath of a motorcycle crash, who’s responsible might seem like more to think about than you have the mental energy for. But knowing who caused the accident is greatly important, for several reasons.

Even in a no-fault state, like Florida, who is responsible for an accident is important to ensure your full financial recovery after a motorcycle accident. No-fault means that drivers turn first to their own personal injury protection (PIP) and other insurance for payment of medical bills and other expenses a motor vehicle accident caused. The state requires PIP of all registered drivers of four-wheeled vehicles.

But a motorcycle, of course, doesn’t have four wheels. Florida law mandates motor vehicle operators to carry insurance “every self-propelled vehicle that is designed and required to be licensed for use upon a highway.” However, that insurance doesn’t play the same role for motorcyclists as PIP does for drivers of cars, trucks, and other four-wheeled vehicles.

If someone other than the motorcyclist bears responsibility for causing the crash, the injured motorcyclist can immediately seek to recover damages from the responsible parties without first exhausting PIP. In a motorcycle accident lawsuit, you can hold a party liable if their actions (or inactions) caused the crash and your injuries.

Let’s say a driver ran a stoplight and plowed directly into you, leading you to sustain serious injuries. The driver was negligent, their failure to stop at the stoplight caused the crash, and the impact and angle directly caused your injuries. You may hold such parties liable to pay compensation, also referred to as damages, for injuries or harm their negligence caused.

If a motorcycle accident injured you, you can seek damages through an insurance claim to the negligent party’s insurance or a personal injury lawsuit in civil court.

Collect Evidence

To bring a successful claim, you need evidence. Negligent parties and their insurers are not likely to admit fault or their liability for the full amount of compensation you deserve.

Calling 911 is a good way to get some initial evidence. Law enforcement will survey the scene, talk to all involved parties, and compile a crash report. Always get a copy of the crash report. It’s first, and central, evidence about who and what caused the crash. If you can, collect evidence yourself, taking pictures of the crash scene, your motorcycle, and your injuries. Pictures are worth a thousand words in terms of evidence, as they can help prove causation and the extent of your injuries as a direct consequence of the crash.

If you can talk to any eyewitnesses, get their contact information, such as e-mail. Eyewitness testimony can also provide invaluable evidence to corroborate your claim. Talk to any motorists and pedestrians involved in the accident. Get their contact and insurance information.

Find an attorney as soon as possible after a motorcycle accident to help with collecting evidence. Attorneys work with investigative teams that can pull surveillance footage, perform forensic analysis, talk to eyewitnesses, and perform other tasks that reveal who and what caused the accident.

Monitor Your Damages

If another party bears responsibility for a motorcycle accident, you can pursue damages through a claim with that party’s insurance or a personal injury lawsuit.

In either case, you can demand compensation for:

• Medical bills for a wide range of medical services, including emergency transport and care, doctor’s appointments, surgeries, hospitalization, diagnostic tests, physical therapy, prescription medication, assistive devices, and more
• Income lost due to the accident, while you are undergoing treatment, or because you incur a disability that prevents you from returning to work
• Property damage for personal property damaged or lost in the accident, such as the motorcycle itself
• Pain and suffering for physical, mental, or emotional pain and suffering related to the accident

Damages can include both already incurred costs and costs expected in the future. Be sure to keep all records of your medical treatment, all bills, and related records to evidence your damages. You will need evidence of the treatment, time lost from work, and property damage, just as you do for the accident.

You arrive at pain and suffering damages by assessing the amount of harm the injuries caused long term. A person with a broken arm will generally receive much less than someone who became paralyzed in an accident, for example. A broken arm may heal and the person may not sustain long-term damage. But paralysis can require intensive medical care for the rest of the victim’s life. Keep a journal of your pain and suffering. Pain and suffering damages can constitute significant compensation if you suffer severe and long-lasting harm.

Your Motorcycle

After a crash, never assume your motorcycle is safe to ride, even if it looks operable. After your lawyer fully inspects it for damage, take it to a qualified mechanic. Tell them it was in an accident and what occurred. Let them examine it and run diagnostics if necessary.

Any crash can damage a vehicle, and motorcycles are particularly vulnerable. Never imperil yourself or your loved ones by assuming a crashed vehicle is safe and riding it, or allowing others to ride it. Make sure it is by having a shop check it out.