If you are involved in a collision with a motorist while riding your bicycle, you can seek to recover compensation, also called “damages” under Oregon law. As with any personal injury compensation claim, there are two main categories of damages: economic or special damages and non-economic or general damages which can be recovered in a personal injury claim or personal injury lawsuit. Those with bicycle injuries may recover both types of compensation or damages in cases and claims involving right hook collisions, illegal left turns, car door openings and run red light and stop-sign intersection crashes. Damages are paid for a variety of injuries including fractures, concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries and soft tissue back and neck injuries which may require emergency room care, orthopedic or chiropractic care, physical therapy and surgery.
Economic or special damages include past and future medical, surgical and nursing expenses, lost wages or income, and loss of earning capacity, as well as property damage and incidental expenses. If you are injured as a result of a bicycle versus vehicle collision, your medical bills are paid for under very specific payment rules. The first payer of medical expenses is your own automobile insurance, if you have any, under a particular coverage called Personal Injury Protection (“PIP”) coverage. All policies of insurance written in Oregon are required to have this coverage. Most policies include $15,000 of coverage for reasonable medical treatment related to the collision-caused injuries within one year of the collision. The second payer of the medical expenses (when the PIP coverage is used up or “exhausted”), is your medical insurance coverage. The third payer of medical bulls is the driver’s automobile coverage under his automobile policy’s PIP coverage.
Many Oregon cyclists do not have automobile coverage and use their bikes as their primary transportation. In that case, their medical coverage pays medical bills after a collision first. If a cyclist has neither automobile coverage or health insurance, the driver’s PIP coverage pats the bills first.
PIP coverage also includes payment of wage loss benefits so long as certain prerequisites are met. The coverage is paid, ordinarily at 70% of the hourly rate or salary.
PIP coverage is “no fault” which means that regardless of who is at fault for the collision, and before an insurance adjuster decides who is at fault, the PIP coverage is available to pay bills and wage loss benefits.
Non-economic or general damages are often referred to as pain and suffering damages and compensate for pain, mental suffering, humiliation, inconvenience and interference with normal and usual non-business activities. Most personal injury lawyers advise cyclists who have been in a collision with a vehicle to wait until the injured cyclist is medically stationary and has a full understanding of the injury and its effects on their life before presenting the claim for pain and suffering damages. Personal injury trial attorneys want to make sure all aspects of their client’s life affected by the collision are taken into consideration when evaluating how much to seek in pain and suffering damages.
STCN’s Oregon personal injury attorneys in its Portland office have been representing injured cyclists for over 25 years and are happy to discuss any questions you may have about damages and how to best recover them.
This post was written by STCN attorney Cynthia F. Newton. Cynthia is a personal injury lawyer, construction accident lawyer and medical negligence lawyer based in downtown Portland.