What To Do After You Get Into An Accident As A Cyclist – A Brief Guide

If you have been in a bicycle accident, you might be wondering about what you should do next and what your rights are. When it comes to bicycle accidents, you should do something similar to when you are in a car accident, which is to document things, among other things. 

Read on to learn more. 

Document the Entire Scene 

If you are on a bicycle and you have been in an accident, your health should be your number one priority. After you have assessed yourself for injuries, and if you are not in some kind of extreme situation where you need to get rushed to the hospital immediately – you should probably document the scene as best as you can. You can take pictures and videos from your phone or a witness’s phone.

Document the following aspects of the accident site:

• The position of the car.
• The position of your bike.
• The entire scene is from different angles. 
• Document the road condition. 
• Take pictures of any debris. 
• Document your injuries, too. 

All of these aspects become highly relevant for both liability and injury. 

Collect Witness Information 

After taking pictures and making videos of the crash scene, you also want to take down the names of any witnesses who may have seen you riding your bike just prior to the accident or even during the collision. On that note, when it comes to collecting witness’s information, sometimes, you can get first names, but you don’t get their last names. You might as well not get everyone’s phone number, but you need to get crucial information that can help identify the witnesses.

You can focus on the following:

• Tag number
• Phone number
• Audio note
• Video note
• First name
• Last name 

The point is that you need to do something to record this important information, as you and your lawyer will need it later. 

Call Your Car Insurance 

When it comes to insurance, you should know that if a car is involved in a collision while you are riding your bike, your car insurance will be the primary payer of the medical bills for the first ten thousand dollars – just like in a car wreck. On that note, it is incredibly important for you to notify your insurance company about the bicycle accident. You don’t have to give any statement to the insurance company, but make sure to notify them about the accident before you hire a lawyer.

Speaking of the lawyer, make sure to hire a bicycle accident lawyer, such as the Las Vegas Bicycle Accident Lawyers, if you live in Las Vegas because the bicycle accident lawyer will have dealt with such cases before, and they will help you get the highest settlement for your case. 

You should know that the car insurance will be the payer at the ER when you get treatment for your injuries. 

Understand the Importance of Defensive Driving

It doesn’t matter whether you are on a car or a bicycle; when you are new on the roads, the best thing you can do is do defensive driving. Defensive driving is driving and watching out for everyone else as if they don’t see you. When you are riding your bike, you need to have the defensive driver’s mindset to avoid collisions. You might be concentrating on your speed or riding your bike in a group, but you always need to think that the car behind you or in front of you or the car that is about to overtake you doesn’t see you. 

You might as well want to think that the car sees you, but they don’t care about you. 

Get Lights and Reflectors 

As a cyclist, make sure to choose your route wisely and know your route well. Wisdom also demands that you have your safety gear on when riding a bike. Ensure that your brakes are tuned up, and if you are riding your bike in the evening or at night, make sure you have working lights on all the right places, such as your helmet, handlebars, seatpost, and bag, and that you have a rear reflector. 

Speaking of reflectors, make sure to have front reflectors and ankle reflectors so that people can see you and detect you from far away. As with everything else in life, prevention is key, which is why you must ensure that you have everything in place that falls into the category of safety. 

Call the Police

Once you have recorded the witness information and documented the scene, don’t waste your time, but call the police immediately. You should never ignore the importance of having a police officer come to the scene and do a report. This aspect is especially true if you have a bike accident. It might look like you don’t have a lot of property damage since you will be on a bike. 

You can expect that there will be a huge pressure from the other driver or the at-fault driver to not call the police – but you will have to push back on it, and you will have to ensure that the police come to the scene and you want a full report done. 

The Importance of A Police Report

Apart from the police report, you want all the information about the witnesses, the names, the addresses of the involved drivers, etc. The police will have the information in their report, too. If there is an injury, there is a great likelihood that you will be involved in a serious case. A car driver doesn’t really know the value of a bike, and if you are riding a ten thousand dollar bike, the car owner who collided with you won’t know that as they won’t have any concept of what they just did. 

They might offer you two to three hundred dollars for the damage on the spot and ask you not to call the police but to go on with your day as if nothing happened. However, as a bicyclist, you must treat your accident seriously and treat it essentially as if you were in a car accident.