Getting Involved in a Hit-and-run: Knowing Your Rights as an Injured Bicyclist

Bicycling is one of the most convenient forms of transportation, most especially in California. In fact, bicyclists are required to comply with the traffic laws of the state, as they also share the road with other motorists. However, bicyclists are vulnerable to hit-and-run accidents, especially if automobile drivers are not aware of their presence on the road.

For some, such horrible incidents are caused by sloppy enforcement of traffic laws. Some would say these are the fault of unlicensed and uninsured drivers. Reasons for such accidents are too complicated and involve a lot of factors that are linked with each other; nonetheless, it is the victims who suffer a lot from these unfortunate instances that should not have happened had the other parties involved acted reasonably with care.

Basically, hit-and-run accidents involving bicycles in California involve criminal charges, which are classified as either misdemeanors or felonies. A misdemeanor charge is filed against the driver d if the bicyclist was hit and caused only property damage, whereas a felony charge is likewise charged if the bicyclist was injured or killed.

While these criminal charges are imperative in punishing lackadaisical and wayward motorists, they don’t actually help in paying the damages to the bicyclists, especially for those who were injured or killed in hit-and-run accidents. For the most part, involved drivers are never located, or, if they had been found, the statute of limitations had already expired.

Dissecting Known Outside Distractions of Drivers

Distracted driving is considered one of the growing pains of drivers in the United States. Recent studies showed that nearly 10 percent of all fatal crashes were partly due to drivers who were not focused behind the wheel. Such drivers may be distracted, asleep or fatigued, if not “lost in thought.”

According to the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, nearly 284,000 drivers involved in traffic crashes every year were distracted. In the said study, the researchers also found that 29 percent of the time, a driver is likely to get distracted by something or someone outside of the car. Age is one factor why outside distractions dominate over other kinds of distracted driving.