Steven A. Bagen | August 27, 2024 | Motorcycle accident
The most frequent injuries from a motorcycle accident involve the lower extremities (legs, feet), upper extremities (arms, hands), and the head and neck. These include bone fractures, severe abrasions known as road rash, and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).
The severity of these injuries is compounded by delayed symptoms and long-term complications that are not apparent in the emergency room. A brain injury, for instance, is a master of deception, with its true impact on your life revealing itself weeks or months later.
Recovering the compensation needed to address these injuries means wrestling with Florida’s specific insurance and liability laws, a burden you should not have to carry while you are healing. Your focus should be on your health; navigating the legal process is our role.
If you are reading this while looking at a growing stack of medical bills, know that you do not have to figure this out on your own. Call our team at Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A. for a no-cost discussion about your situation at (800) 800-2575.
Motorcycle Accident Injury Statistics
Legs and Feet
Statistically, a rider’s legs and feet are the most vulnerable parts of the body in a crash. According to the CDC, up to 40% of all motorcycle crash injuries involve the lower extremities. The initial impact is usually with a car’s bumper, where the legs become pinned between the bike and the other vehicle or the road surface.
- Specific Injuries:
- “Biker’s Leg”: This is a term sometimes used to describe the severe nerve damage, fractures, and soft tissue injuries that occur when the leg is crushed or violently twisted.
- Shattered Bones: Pelvic fractures, femur (thigh bone) fractures, and crushed bones in the ankles and feet are very common. These injuries frequently require multiple, complex surgeries to implant plates, rods, and screws for stabilization.
- Degloving: This is a particularly horrific injury where a large section of skin and underlying tissue is ripped away from the muscle and bone, much like a glove being pulled off. It requires immediate, specialized surgical care and extensive skin grafting.
Head Injuries
Head and brain injuries don’t happen as frequently, but when they do, they’re deadly serious. The CDC found that more than half of motorcycle crash deaths involve head injuries.
Even when a rider is wearing a helmet, the violent forces in a crash cause the brain to accelerate and then slam into the hard surface of the skull. This can lead to a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), an injury whose full effects are not immediately obvious.
- “Mild” TBI vs. Severe TBI: Insurance companies may seize on the term “mild” TBI or concussion to downplay its significance. But don’t let this definition make you downplay your symptoms. “Mild” here is only relative—even a supposedly mild concussion frequently leads to debilitating long-term consequences, including persistent headaches, memory loss, difficulty concentrating, and profound personality changes.
- The Deceptive Nature of Brain Injuries: Unlike a broken bone, the symptoms of a TBI are at first and may not fully manifest for days or even weeks. This delay can become a point of contention, as an insurance adjuster might argue the symptoms are unrelated to the accident.
- The Role of Helmets: Helmets cut your risk of head injury by more than half, and your risk of dying by about a third. But they’re not magic. A bad hit can leave you dealing with memory loss, headaches, and personality changes that don’t show up until weeks later.
- Florida’s Helmet Law: Under Florida Statute § 316.211, riders under the age of 21 must wear a helmet. Those over 21 may choose not to wear one, provided they have at least $10,000 in medical benefits coverage. If you were not wearing a helmet, an insurance company will likely try to argue that your choice contributed to your injuries to reduce the compensation they owe. This makes skilled legal guidance particularly important.
Back and Spine
Back and spinal cord injuries are less common, but devastating when they do happen. The sheer violence of being ejected from a motorcycle may cause the spine to twist, compress, or hyperextend beyond its limits. This can fracture vertebrae, which in turn can sever or damage the delicate spinal cord, interrupting the flow of signals between the brain and the rest of the body.
- Levels of Injury: The consequences of a spinal cord injury are directly related to the location of the damage.
- Paraplegia: An injury to the thoracic or lumbar spine can result in the loss of sensation and function in the lower body.
- Quadriplegia/Tetraplegia: Damage to the cervical spine (the neck area) can cause paralysis from the neck down, affecting all four limbs and torso.
- The Financial Reality: The lifetime cost of care for a person with a spinal cord injury can easily run into the millions of dollars. These costs include everything from mobility equipment and vehicle modifications to extensive home renovations and the potential need for round-the-clock medical assistance. An initial settlement offer from an insurer will never come close to covering these long-term needs.
Road Rash
“Road rash” doesn’t sound serious, but when it’s bad, it’s like a third-degree burn. Sliding across an asphalt or concrete surface at speed is like being pressed against a high-speed belt sander, causing devastating tissue damage. It happens in more than half of accidents.
- Degrees of Road Rash: Like burns, road rash is classified by its severity. First-degree is superficial, but third-degree road rash is a full-thickness wound that strips away layers of skin and fat, potentially exposing muscle, tendons, and bone.
- Infection: As you slide, debris from the road surface—gravel, dirt, glass, and bacteria—is ground directly into the wound. This creates an extremely high risk of serious, potentially life-threatening infections like cellulitis or sepsis.
- Scarring and Disfigurement: Severe road rash always results in permanent scarring. It often requires painful debridement procedures and extensive plastic surgery, including skin grafts, leading to lasting changes in your appearance and the associated emotional distress.
The Financial Injuries: When the Bills Start to Arrive
For many, the financial pressure that follows a serious motorcycle accident is a second source of trauma. As you watch your savings dwindle while you are unable to work, the stress can feel immense. We understand that a true recovery plan must account for these financial injuries.
Your Savings in a Nosedive
The costs extend far beyond the initial emergency room bill. A comprehensive legal claim anticipates and documents every category of financial loss.
- Future Medical Care: This includes ongoing physical therapy, potential future surgeries to remove hardware or revise scars, long-term pain management, and the lifetime cost of prescription medications.
- Lost Earning Capacity: This is not just the paychecks you have already missed. We craft a forward-looking calculation of how the injury rewrites your financial future. It considers the promotions you may now miss, a career change you might be forced to make, or, in the most severe cases, the inability to ever return to meaningful employment.
- Non-Economic Damages: This is compensation for how the accident has fundamentally altered your life. Or in other words, legal recognition for the physical pain, the emotional trauma, the loss of enjoyment of hobbies and activities, and the daily struggles that have become your new reality.
How Florida’s Laws Impact Your Recovery
The Rule of “Comparative Negligence”
Florida law operates on a system of pure comparative negligence.
This means you can pursue compensation from another party even if you were partially at fault for the accident. A court assigns a percentage of fault to everyone involved, and your total compensation award is simply reduced by your percentage of fault. For example, if you are found to be 10% at fault, you can still recover 90% of your damages. Insurance companies are very skilled at finding ways to shift as much blame as possible onto the injured rider to reduce their payout.
The Deadlines You Don’t Know About
The legal system operates on strict timelines. Missing a deadline might mean losing your right to seek compensation forever, regardless of the severity of your injury.
- Statute of Limitations: In Florida, you generally have a limited window of time from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit. While there are some exceptions, this deadline is unforgiving.
- Notice for Government Claims: If a government entity played a role in your accident—perhaps due to a dangerously designed road, a malfunctioning traffic signal, or a collision with a city-owned vehicle—the rules are different. You must provide that government entity with formal notice of your claim in a much shorter timeframe, sometimes as little as six months.
Let Us Handle the Burden—You Focus on Healing
The time after a serious motorcycle accident is not a fair fight. You are trying to manage pain and focus on physical recovery while a well-funded insurance corporation is focused on protecting its bottom line.
Our role at Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A. is to level that playing field. We take on the responsibility of gathering police reports and medical records, consulting with medical and financial professionals to project future costs, and handling every communication, deadline, and negotiation so that you do not have to.
Your story deserves to be heard, and your future needs to be protected. For a straightforward, no-cost conversation about your rights and legal options, call our team today at (800) 800-2575.
Frequently Asked Questions About Motorcycle Accident Injuries
The other driver’s insurance already offered me a settlement. Should I take it?
No. The insurance adjuster’s job is to close your claim for the lowest amount possible. The offer is calculated to seem helpful in the moment, but it is always far less than the true, long-term value of your claim. It is made before the full extent of your injuries, your need for future treatment, and your total financial losses are known. Once you accept that check, you forfeit your right to ever ask for more money for this incident again.
What if I wasn’t wearing a helmet in my Florida accident?
As we mentioned above, you are legally permitted to ride without a helmet in Florida if you are over 21 and carry the required insurance coverage. However, if you suffer a head injury, the other driver’s insurance company will absolutely use your decision against you. They will argue that your choice not to wear a helmet contributed to the severity of your injury. This is a standard tactic under Florida’s comparative negligence rule, used to try and reduce the amount of money they have to pay. It does not prevent you from having a claim, but it makes having strong, prepared legal representation absolutely mandatory.
Do I need a lawyer if the other driver was clearly at fault?
Yes. Even in cases where liability seems obvious, the insurance company’s goal remains the same: to minimize its payout. They will not fight you on who caused the crash; instead, they will fight you on the value of your damages. They will question the severity of what are the most common types of motorcycle accident injuries you sustained, challenge the necessity of your medical treatments, and aggressively downplay the value of your pain and suffering. Our firm anticipates these arguments and builds a case from day one that is designed to stand up to this intense scrutiny.
What if a defect in my motorcycle or helmet caused the injury?
This situation could give rise to a product liability claim against the manufacturer of the faulty component. These cases are distinct from a typical negligence claim. Under a legal concept known as strict liability, it may be possible to establish liability without having to prove the manufacturer was negligent. If you suspect a defect played a role, preserve the motorcycle and any related gear as evidence.