The most common injuries from motorcycle accidents involve the legs, arms, head, neck, and spine. However, the diagnosis itself doesn't capture the full picture. These injuries lead to extensive medical bills, lost time from work, and long-term pain that changes your day-to-day life.
Getting injured in an accident impacts every aspect of your life, often resulting in weeks or months of lost income, mounting bills for surgery and physical therapy, and the frustration of not being able to live your life as you did before. Calculating the true cost of an injury goes far beyond the initial emergency room visit.
Recovering these costs requires a detailed understanding of how to document every expense and demonstrate the full impact on your life. We help build a comprehensive claim that accounts for every loss. If you have a question about an injury from a motorcycle accident, call Pendergast Law at (206) 620-0707.
Key Takeaways for Motorcycle Accident Injuries
- Your total compensation includes more than just initial medical bills. A successful claim accounts for future medical needs, all lost income, and the personal cost of pain and suffering.
- Documentation is essential for a strong claim. This includes preserving all medical records, pay stubs to prove lost wages, and journals detailing how the injuries affect your daily life.
- Different injuries require different legal strategies. Calculating the true cost of a traumatic brain injury, for example, is a much different process than for a broken leg and requires specialized expertise to secure your financial future.
Lower-Extremity Injuries
Injuries to the legs, knees, ankles, and feet are the single most frequent type of non-fatal injury in motorcycle crashes. This ranges from fractures to severe soft tissue damage that alters your life permanently.
What Is the True Impact?
- Economic Impact: A severe leg fracture could require surgery, the insertion of rods or plates, and a long hospital stay. This is followed by weeks or months of physical therapy just to learn how to walk again. All the while, you are likely unable to work, especially if your job requires you to be on your feet.
- Personal Impact: Your mobility is gone. Simple tasks like going to the grocery store or walking your dog become difficult or impossible. The loss of independence and the chronic ache from a healing bone takes a serious emotional toll.
How Does a Lawyer Help With These Specific Costs?
A personal injury claim for one of these common types of motorcycle accident injuries requires a detailed accounting of every loss. We gather all medical records related to surgeries, hospital stays, and rehabilitation. We work with you to document your lost wages, paystub by paystub.
If the injury affects your ability to work in the long term, we consult with experts to project your diminished earning capacity over your lifetime. This ensures your settlement accounts for future financial stability.
Head and Brain Injuries
A Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI, occurs even with a helmet. Washington law requires all riders to wear a helmet under RCW 46.37.530, which dramatically reduces the risk of death, but TBIs still happen. Symptoms might not even appear for days or weeks, making them difficult to diagnose immediately.
Economic Impact
The costs for treating a severe TBI are among the highest for any injury, with lifetime expenses potentially reaching millions of dollars. They require lifelong medical care, specialized therapies (speech, occupational), and sometimes, assisted living arrangements. The financial burden on a family is immense.
Personal Impact
A TBI might affect your memory, your personality, and your ability to regulate emotions. The injury profoundly impacts your relationships with your family and friends. This loss of cognitive function and personal connection is a heavy, non-economic cost.
How Does a Lawyer Help With These Specific Costs?
A TBI case requires showing the full extent of the cognitive and emotional changes. We work with medical and life-care planning professionals to create a detailed report on future needs. We help families document the day-to-day changes, demonstrating the human cost of the injury to build a strong case for pain and suffering damages.
Neck, Back, and Spine Injuries
The force of a motorcycle crash transfers directly to the rider's torso and spine. Spinal cord injuries range from whiplash and herniated discs to fractures that result in partial or full paralysis.
Economic Impact
Even a "minor" disc injury might require expensive injections or surgery. A catastrophic spinal cord injury means millions of dollars in lifetime costs, including wheelchairs, home modifications, and round-the-clock nursing care.
Personal Impact
Chronic back and neck pain rewrites every aspect of life. It makes sitting at a desk, driving a car, or sleeping through the night a painful ordeal. Paralysis represents a permanent loss of function and independence, changing a person's life and the lives of their family members forever.
How Does a Lawyer Help With These Specific Costs?
Insurance companies may argue that your back or neck pain stems from a pre-existing condition. We gather evidence to connect the injury directly to the accident. For catastrophic injuries, we construct a comprehensive life-care plan that calculates every future expense, from medical equipment to transportation needs, to ensure your financial security for decades to come.
Road Rash and Internal Injuries
Not all serious injuries are visible right away. Road rash is a severe skin abrasion that requires skin grafts and leads to permanent scarring and infections. Internal injuries involve damage to organs like the spleen, kidneys, or liver and might not be immediately obvious.
Economic Impact
Treating severe road rash is painful and expensive, involving plastic surgery. Internal bleeding is life-threatening and requires emergency surgery and a long, costly ICU stay.
Personal Impact
Disfiguring scars from road rash cause significant emotional distress and self-consciousness. The trauma of a severe internal injury leads to lasting psychological effects, like anxiety or PTSD.
How Does a Lawyer Help With These Specific Costs?
Your recovery should account for both present and future needs. We ensure that the compensation sought includes funds for future procedures, like scar revision surgery. We also help you document the emotional and psychological toll through records of therapy or counseling, ensuring these non-economic damages are a key part of your claim.
How Insurance Companies Handle Motorcycle Accident Claims Differently
Motorcycle Prejudice Works Against Your Claim
Insurance companies exploit widespread motorcycle prejudice during claim negotiations and potential jury trials. Adjusters frequently argue that motorcyclists are inherently reckless risk-takers who bear responsibility for their injuries regardless of actual accident circumstances. This prejudice allows insurers to suggest you "assumed the risk" by riding a motorcycle, shifting blame away from negligent drivers who caused the collision.
Washington juries sometimes harbor these same biases, making insurance companies more willing to take motorcycle cases to trial than car accident claims with similar facts. They bet that jury prejudice will reduce verdict amounts or eliminate liability entirely, giving them leverage during settlement negotiations.
Surveillance Operations Target Your Daily Activities
Private investigators hired by insurance companies monitor motorcycle accident victims more aggressively than other injury claimants. These investigators document your movements, photograph you performing activities, and record video footage that appears inconsistent with claimed injuries when presented out of context.
A video showing you carrying groceries into your house gets used to argue your back injury isn't severe, even though the footage doesn't show the hours of pain you endured afterward. Investigators attend your physical therapy appointments, follow you to medical visits, and stake out your home looking for any activity that might undermine your injury claims.
Independent Medical Examinations Dispute Your Injuries
Insurance companies send motorcycle accident victims to Independent Medical Examinations (IMEs) conducted by doctors they regularly hire for claim evaluations. These physicians provide opinions minimizing injury severity, questioning treatment necessity, and attributing symptoms to pre-existing conditions rather than your recent accident.
IME doctors spend minimal time examining you, often just 15-30 minutes, yet provide detailed reports contradicting your treating physicians who have monitored your recovery for months. Their reports serve one purpose: giving insurance companies medical opinions that justify lower settlement offers or claim denials.
Pre-Existing Condition Arguments Reduce Your Compensation
Insurance adjusters scrutinize your complete medical history searching for any prior injuries, even minor ones from years earlier. They argue that current symptoms stem from old injuries rather than the motorcycle accident, reducing their payment obligations significantly.
A herniated disc from a motorcycle crash gets blamed on degenerative disc disease shown in medical records from a previous unrelated incident. Adjusters use these arguments even when your treating physicians clearly document that the accident caused new injuries or significantly worsened existing conditions.
Social Media Posts Become Evidence Against You
Insurance companies monitor your social media profiles looking for content that suggests activities inconsistent with injury claims. Facebook photos showing you attending family gatherings or Instagram posts where you're smiling at events get twisted to argue that injuries don't cause significant pain or lifestyle limitations.
Adjusters screenshot posts, save images, and compile social media activity into reports that misrepresent your actual condition. Even innocent content celebrating a family milestone or showing support for friends becomes evidence to minimize your claim.
Frequently Asked Questions About Motorcycle Accident Injuries
What if I wasn't wearing a helmet in Washington? Can I still file a claim?
Yes. While Washington has a mandatory helmet law, the state also uses a pure comparative fault rule. This means your compensation might be reduced by the percentage you are found to be at fault, but it does not prevent you from recovering damages from a negligent driver.
How long do I have to file a motorcycle accident claim in Washington?
In most cases, you have three years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit under Washington's statute of limitations. This deadline is strict, so consult with an attorney sooner rather than later to preserve your rights.
The other driver's insurance company offered me a quick settlement. Should I take it?
Never accept an early settlement offer from an insurance company. Initial offers rarely account for the full long-term costs of your injuries, including future medical care, lost earning potential, and your total pain and suffering. They are designed to close the case quickly and for the lowest amount possible.
How much does it cost to hire Pendergast Law for my case?
We handle personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis. Simply put, this means you pay no upfront fees. We only receive a fee if we successfully recover compensation for you.
What happens if the at-fault driver was uninsured or underinsured?
In this situation, we would look at your own insurance policy. We will help you file a claim under your Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UIM) coverage, which is designed for exactly this scenario.
Don’t Let Your Recovery Be Defined by Someone Else’s Negligence.
You may be worried that your injuries are too complicated, the bills are too high, or that you'll be blamed for the crash. These are common fears, but they don't have to be your reality. The law provides a path to hold the responsible party accountable for the full scope of your losses.
Your focus should be on healing. Our focus is on ensuring you have the financial resources to do so. Let us handle the legal process. The first step is a simple conversation about what happened.
If you're ready to discuss your options, call Pendergast Law today for a no-obligation consultation at (206) 620-0707.