If you or someone you love has been the victim of a bicycle accident, contact our Bellville personal injury lawyers at Morelli Law. We will help you fight for compensation after your accident so you can pay for your medical bills and many other damages.
Insurance and Bicycle Accidents
Assuming someone driving a vehicle hit you, they must carry insurance by law. You can make a claim against their insurance to get paid for what happened to you.
However, the insurance company is not your friend. They will try to pay you as little as they can and take a long time to pay out. That’s why people hire a Belleville bicycle accident lawyer to help them. A lawyer shows the insurers that you’re willing to take the matter to court if they don’t negotiate fairly.
If the person who harmed you doesn’t have insurance, then a lawyer becomes even more important. We can see if the other party has assets you can claim through a lawsuit and take them to court. We will argue aggressively on your behalf before the judge and jury so you can get justice.
How We’ll Win Your Bicycle Accident Claim
There are four things we must prove to show an insurer or the court that you’re owed compensation for an accident. These four things are:
- Duty of Care – Did the other party have a responsibility to keep you safe by acting reasonably? Drivers have an automatic duty of care for anyone using the roads.
- Breach of Duty – Did the other party break their duty of care by breaking a traffic law or acting in a way that put you in danger?
- Causation – Did that breach cause the accident? Was there anything else that may have contributed?
- Damages – What you seek payment for through the accident.
Your lawyer will do an investigation to discover evidence to prove these four things. If the first three are proven, then the other side was negligent. From there, your lawyer will negotiate your damages or take the other side to court if they do not come to a reasonable agreement.
Damages You Can Claim Through a Bicycle Accident
When you’ve been in an accident, you experience injuries and other negative consequences. These are called damages. When you make an insurance claim or sue someone, you’re demanding money to cover your damages.Some damages are straightforward. If you have a bill or an invoice you have to pay because of your accident, you can submit that as part of your compensation. However, some damages are not so straightforward, like pain and suffering.
An insurance company would prefer to get you to settle as soon as possible before you know the full value of your damages. Before you accept any insurance offer, speak with one of our bicycle accident lawyers in Belleville to learn what your case is really worth.
Bicycle Helmet Laws in Illinois and Compensation
An insurance company may try to say that you weren’t wearing a helmet when you were in your accident. They may try to lower your compensation because you allegedly shared in the negligence behind your accident.
Illinois bike laws state no legal requirement for riders to wear bicycle helmets. However, some cities like Chicago have a helmet requirement. If you were required to wear a helmet by law and you weren’t wearing one, then the insurance company may have a point.
A Belleville bicycle accident lawyer can push back against this argument and force them to prove it. Without one, you won’t have the legal knowledge to do so. If you were in an accident and you weren’t wearing a helmet, call Morelli Law immediately for advice.
How Soon Must I File a Bicycle Accident Claim?
If you want to sue, you must do it before the statute of limitations expires. In Illinois, the deadline for filing these claims is two years from the date of the accident. If you try to file after this point, the court will reject your case.
There are some exceptions that could lengthen or even shorten this deadline, but most cases will fall under the two-year rule. Therefore, it’s important to speak with a Belleville bicycle accident lawyer as soon as possible after your accident.
This gives your lawyer as much time as possible to find evidence, build a case, and negotiate with insurers to reach a settlement. If we cannot reach an agreement, we will prepare your case for trial and work to persuade a jury to decide in your favor.
Is Working With a Belleville Bicycle Accident Attorney Expensive?
Lawyer fees can be high, but personal injury attorneys like us do not charge by the hour or a huge upfront fee. Instead, we get paid based on performance. We don’t collect a fee unless you win compensation in your case.
If you win, we get paid a fixed percentage of your compensation, and we agree on that amount at the start of our client-attorney relationship.
This contingency system encourages us to fight for the most possible because the better we do, the more we both win!
Contact Morelli Law in Belleville
If you’ve been hurt in a bicycle accident in Belleville, don’t wait. Contact Morelli Law as soon as you can after your accident for a free consultation.
We’ll listen to your story and explain how we can help you get the most from your accident. The sooner you call, the sooner you can win, so call now to schedule your appointment.
