Not all motorcycle accidents involve a collision or contact crash. However, the driver of an automobile could be held responsible for the property damage and injuries to the motorcyclist even if their automobile didn’t come in contact with the motorcyclist or the motorcycle. The main issue with a no-contact motorcycle accident is negligence.
Negligence in No-Contact Motorcycle Accidents
The four main elements of negligence include duty, breach of the duty, causation, and damage. Negligence is failing to employ reasonable or justifiable care. If a sensible or sound individual would have acted in a specific way and then failed to do so and caused the accident, then that individual was negligent. Conversely, if that individual didn’t act in a specific way, acting in such a way could likewise be deemed negligent.
The Elements of No-Contact Motorcycle Accidents
Let’s say you’re riding your motorcycle and you’re parallel to a car, then the car suddenly switches lanes and moves in front of you. You then brake urgently, flipping over your handlebars, landing on the street, and causing injury and damage to your motorcycle. In this scenario, the driver is clearly negligent since they changed lanes suddenly without proper warning. If the driver had been mindful of their surroundings, they would have seen you and avoided cutting in front of you.
Another scenario would be a car moving with you (the motorcyclist) right behind. The driver suddenly got distracted by their phone ringing or by the blaring radio and failed to see that the oncoming traffic was slowing down. In an effort to prevent the car from hitting the vehicle in front of them, the driver brakes forcefully. Upon seeing the driver brake suddenly, you then steer your motorcycle to the side, toppled over, and got injured.
In the above scenario, the driver owed you a “duty of reasonable care,” but you also had a duty to be more mindful of your surroundings. In this case, halepaskalaw.com and other motorcycle injury lawyers say that you and the driver could be held equally liable for the outcome. Depending on the specific circumstances of the accident, the court might point out that you must have been more aware of your surroundings.
As you can see from the above-mentioned scenarios, you could see that no-contact motorcycle accidents are like any other type of traffic accident. This means that the main issue isn’t whether the car and motorcycle crashed into each other, but whether the motorcyclist and driver behaved negligently. Put simply, if the driver’s negligence caused you to crash your motorcycle, the driver would be held responsible even if there were no collision involved.
