Austin Bicycle Accident Lawyer
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You did everything right. You signaled. You took the lane when you needed to. You wore the helmet, ran the lights, gave the cars and trucks their space. And a driver hit you anyway.
A bike wreck is not a “minor collision.” A two-ton vehicle striking a person on a bicycle almost always means real injuries, real medical bills, and real time off work. And it also usually means an insurance company will spend the next several months looking for any reason to pay you less than your case is worth.
For more than 30 years, Schuelke Law has represented injured Texans against insurance companies that put profit ahead of people. In that time, we have represented recreational cyclists, commuting cyclists, competitive cyclists, and even a professional Ironman athlete who was in a bicycle crash. Our personal injury attorney knows how cyclist cases differ from ordinary car wrecks, how Texas’s coverage rules really work, and how to find every dollar of insurance that may apply to your claim — including coverage you may not realize you have. Talk to an experienced Austin bicycle accident lawyer today.
When two cars collide, both drivers have airbags, crumple zones, and seatbelts. When a car hits a cyclist, the cyclist has a helmet — if that.
That mismatch shows up in the injuries in bike wreck cases:
It also shows up in how insurance adjusters approach the case. They often start from a built-in assumption that the cyclist did something wrong — “came out of nowhere,” ran a light, wasn’t visible, wasn’t wearing a helmet. The insurance companies start out with a bias against bike riders. The truth, in the cases that come through our Austin bicycle wreck attorney, is usually the opposite: a driver was distracted, in a hurry, or simply wasn’t looking.
We push back on those assumptions with evidence.
Most bike wrecks are not freak accidents. They follow a small handful of patterns our Austin bicycle collision lawyer sees again and again:
A driver who causes any of these wrecks can be held legally responsible for the cyclist’s injuries — and so, in some cases, can their employer, a bar that overserved them, or a city or state agency responsible for a dangerous road condition.
Some Austin streets see a disproportionate share of bicycle wrecks because of traffic volume, road design, and the absence of protected bike lanes. Areas where we frequently see crashes include:
Our Austin attorney handles bike wreck cases across Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop, and Caldwell counties, and throughout Texas.
In Texas, a bicycle is treated as a vehicle under the Texas Transportation Code. That means cyclists generally have the same rights and responsibilities as drivers. You can take the lane when it isn’t safe to share it. Drivers must yield to you at intersections, signal their turns, and treat you as they would any other vehicle.
Some of the laws that come up most often in our cases:
Texas does not have a statewide safe-passing law, but the City of Austin does. Under Austin City Code § 12-1-35, a driver passing a cyclist or other vulnerable road user must either change lanes (on a multi-lane road) or pass at a safe distance — defined as at least three feet for passenger cars and light trucks, and at least six feet for commercial vehicles.
That ordinance matters in cyclist cases. When a driver hits or runs a cyclist off the road by passing too closely, a violation of § 12-1-35 can be powerful evidence of negligence. It is one of the first things our Austin bicycle collision lawyer looks at in any close-pass or sideswipe case in the city limits.
If you are reading this in the hours after a wreck, the most important things you can do are simple:
We’ve put all of this — plus what to expect from insurance adjusters and what UM/UIM coverage may apply — into a free downloadable guide.
In most cases, the negligent driver is the primary defendant. But cyclist cases often involve more than one source of recovery, and a thorough investigation should always look beyond the driver.
Potentially liable parties include:
Identifying every potentially liable party is one of the most important things a bicycle accident lawyer does early in a case in Austin. Missing one of them can mean leaving compensation on the table.
Texas is an at-fault state. The driver who caused the wreck is responsible for paying for your damages, and their auto liability insurance is usually the first source of recovery. But there’s a catch: the minimum liability coverage required in Texas is just $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. State regulators estimate that the majority of insured Texas drivers carry only those minimum limits — and roughly one in five drivers on Texas roads carries no insurance at all.
For a cyclist with a serious injury, $30,000 doesn’t come close to covering the medical bills, much less lost wages, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, and the cost of bike and gear replacement.
Here is what most cyclists do not realize: if you own a car and carry UM/UIM coverage on your auto policy, that coverage follows you onto your bicycle. It is not limited to wrecks where you are inside your car. It applies when you are walking, when you are riding, or even, as the policy language often reads, “while occupying… or as a pedestrian struck by” an underinsured vehicle.
Your UM/UIM coverage may apply when:
UM/UIM is also one of the more legally complex areas of Texas insurance law. The Texas Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Brainard v. Trinity Universal Insurance Co. fundamentally changed how UM/UIM claims are brought, valued, and paid in this state. Many lawyers — even most experienced personal injury lawyers — are not deeply familiar with how Brainard and the cases that followed it affect everything from procedure to attorneys’ fees.
Brooks Schuelke has spoken and written extensively on Texas UM/UIM law for more than fifteen years, including the leading paper on UM/UIM claims after Brainard.
If you carry PIP or MedPay on your auto policy, those coverages may also apply to a bike wreck. Both are no-fault coverages that pay medical bills (and, for PIP, a portion of lost wages) regardless of who caused the wreck.
Your own health insurance can pay for medical care while your case is pending, but it usually has the right to be reimbursed out of any settlement. Handling that subrogation correctly, including negotiating down the amount requested, is part of what an experienced personal injury lawyer does to maximize the amount of money that ends up in your pocket.
In some cases, a homeowner’s or renter’s policy can cover damage to a bicycle, and a separate “bicycle endorsement” may provide additional protection if you ride a high-end bike.
The bottom line. Don’t assume you have no recovery just because the driver fled, had no insurance, or had a bare-minimum policy. Before you give up on a claim, call us. Our lawyer will review every auto policy in your household, every coverage on every policy, and every potentially liable party — and they will tell you, honestly, what we think your Austin bicycle accident case is worth.
Texas law allows injured cyclists to recover both economic and non-economic damages.
Economic damages are out-of-pocket and verifiable losses, including:
Non-economic damages compensate for losses that don’t have a price tag, including:
If a loved one was killed in a bike wreck, victims should talk to an Austin attorney as the family may have a wrongful death and survival claim under Texas law.
Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule with a 51% bar. You can still recover damages even if you were partly responsible for the wreck, as long as you were 50% or less at fault. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault.
Insurance adjusters know this rule, and they use it. Common arguments we see in cyclist cases include:
Each of these is a fault-shifting tactic, and each has well-developed responses under Texas law. Don’t accept blame — and don’t accept a low offer based on it — without first talking to an Austin bicycle crash lawyer.
Most Texas personal injury claims, including bicycle wreck claims, must be filed in court within two years from the date of the wreck. That sounds like a long time. It isn’t.
Several things make the practical deadline much shorter:
The single most valuable thing you can do is talk to a bicycle accident lawyer in Austin early. The consultation is free, and getting an early start almost always increases the value of the case.
When you hire us to be your Austin bike accident attorney, here is what happens.
Investigation. We move quickly to preserve evidence. We track down witnesses while their memories are fresh. When the case calls for it, we work with accident reconstruction experts and biomechanical engineers.
Coverage analysis. We obtain copies of potentially applicable insurance policies and analyze each one for liability, UM/UIM, PIP, MedPay, and umbrella coverage. We do not assume the driver’s policy is the only one that matters.
Medical documentation. We work with your treating doctors and, when necessary, with life-care planners and economists to document the full extent of your injuries — past, present, and future.
Negotiation, then litigation if needed. We open negotiations once your treatment has stabilized and we have a complete picture of damages. If the insurance company won’t pay what the case is worth, we file suit. Most cases settle, but we prepare every case as if it will be tried.
Real communication. The number 1 complaint about lawyers is a lack of communication. We pride ourselves on avoiding that. If we agree to represent you, we’ll plug you into our text message system. And Schuelke Law guarantees that we’ll respond to client text messages within two business days — or we write you a check for $50. We mean it.
Read what our clients say here.
In most circumstances, yes. Texas does not require adults to wear bicycle helmets, and not wearing one does not, by itself, make you legally at fault for a wreck a driver caused. An insurance adjuster may try to use it to reduce the value of your claim, but the argument is more limited under Texas law than they often suggest.
You may still have a claim. Hit-and-run drivers are treated as “uninsured” under Texas auto insurance policies, which means your own UM coverage may apply. The “contact rule” requires that there be physical contact between the vehicle and you (or your bicycle) for hit and run UM coverage to apply, but courts have found indirect contact (for example, a hit and run driver striking another car which then strikes you) sufficient to trigger coverage.
Texas allows you to recover as long as you were not more than 50% at fault. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault.
If your auto policy includes UM/UIM, PIP, or MedPay, the answer is often yes. We routinely identify coverage that injured cyclists did not realize they had.
Austin attorney Brooks Schuelke at Schuelke Law handles bike wreck cases on a contingency fee basis. There are no up-front costs and no hourly bills. We get paid only if we recover compensation for you.
Most cases resolve in several months to a couple of years, depending on the severity of injuries, the complexity of coverage, and whether litigation is necessary. We don’t recommend settling until your medical treatment has stabilized enough to give us a clear picture of your damages.
Most personal injury cases settle. We prepare every case as if it will be tried, because that preparation is often what produces a fair settlement.
A police report is not the final word on fault. Officers arrive after the wreck and rely on what witnesses and drivers tell them. We routinely investigate further and have often helped find evidence that contradicts a flawed initial report.
If you or someone you love was hurt in a bicycle wreck in Texas, talk to an Austin bicycle accident lawyer before you talk to the insurance company. The consultation is free. There is no obligation. And if we take your case, you don’t pay a fee unless we recover compensation for you.