Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Missouri

Who pays after a bicycle accident in Missouri?

The driver who hit you pays, through that driver's liability insurance, and only after fault is shown. Missouri has no personal injury protection, so no policy pays a cyclist's bills automatically. In the meantime your health insurance covers treatment and is reimbursed out of the settlement, and if you have no coverage, many Missouri providers will treat under an agreement to be paid from the recovery.

Your own household auto insurance matters even though you were on a bike. RSMo 303.025 requires every Missouri driver to carry liability insurance, and every auto policy sold in the state includes uninsured motorist coverage that follows the named insured and resident relatives wherever they are, including on a saddle. If the driver had no insurance or fled and was never found, your policy or a policy belonging to a relative you live with responds. Underinsured motorist coverage is optional in Missouri, so we read every declarations page in your home.

Medical payments coverage is another optional line on many Missouri auto policies, and it pays early bills regardless of fault, which helps a rider with a high deductible or a gap in health coverage. A cyclist who owns no car and lives alone has none of these layers, which makes the driver's policy, and any owner, employer or rideshare policy behind it, the whole recovery. Identifying every policy behind the vehicle is the first week's work.

Hit and run is a cyclist's particular problem, because the rider is often on the pavement before the plate can be read. Leaving the scene of a crash is a crime under RSMo 577.060, and the search for the driver runs through cameras, witnesses and the police investigation. Uninsured motorist coverage on a household policy usually responds to a promptly reported hit and run, and Missouri has no public fund for a rider whose household carries no auto policy, so finding the driver comes first.

How much is a Missouri bicycle accident claim worth?

The claim is worth what the crash took from you, one category at a time. Economic damages are the measurable losses: the ambulance and emergency bills, surgery, the physical therapy and future care your doctors expect, lost wages and benefits, the drop in earning capacity if you cannot return to your job, and out of pocket costs. The bicycle, the helmet and the gear are property damage, and a well built road bike is worth documenting with receipts and a shop estimate.

Cyclist injuries run serious because nothing sits between you and the vehicle or the pavement. Fractured collarbones, wrists and hips, facial fractures, head injuries and road rash deep enough to need grafts are the pattern. A collarbone that heals in a sling sits at the low end. A hip or wrist fixed with plates, a facial reconstruction, or a concussion with lasting memory and balance problems sits well above it. A spinal cord injury, an amputation or a death is valued in its own category.

Two things set the practical ceiling. The first is the share of fault assigned to you, because the adjuster will argue lane position, lighting or a rolled stop sign to shrink the number. The second is insurance. A driver with a state minimum policy cannot pay for a surgical injury, so we look for the vehicle owner, an employer, a rideshare company's commercial coverage and your own household underinsured coverage before we accept that the limit is the limit.

We do not quote a figure on the first call. A number offered before your doctors know how you will heal is a guess, and the insurer is counting on you to take one. We gather the records, wait for the prognosis and put a demand on paper backed by evidence. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case turns on its own injuries, facts and coverage.

What if the insurer blames the cyclist or lowballs the claim?

Expect it. Insurers treat a rider as someone who can be blamed for being in the road at all. The script is familiar: you were outside the bike lane, you swerved, you had no lights, you rolled the stop sign, the driver could not see you. A denial or a low first offer built on that script is where the adjuster starts, and the recorded statement requested in the first days is where the percentage gets built. Do not give that statement. We take every call once you retain us.

Because RSMo 537.765 reduces recovery by your share of fault, every one of those arguments is aimed at a number, not at the existence of the claim. An adjuster who cannot deny fault will try to push your percentage as high as possible. A sentence like "I thought the car would wait" becomes a 40 percent argument. Our job is to hold that percentage where the evidence puts it.

The evidence in a bicycle case is unusually good. A bike computer or a ride tracking app records your speed, your line and the exact second the ride stopped, which answers the speeding claim. A helmet camera or the driver's dash camera shows the turn. Storefront, doorbell and traffic cameras, and RideKC and Metro Transit buses, record the street. The driver's phone records show where the driver's eyes were. The dent on the fender and the scrape on the frame fix the point of impact, and where the physics are disputed we retain a reconstruction engineer.

The second line of attack is medical. The insurer points to age related findings on an MRI, an old shoulder complaint or a gap between the crash and your first visit, then sends you to a doctor it chooses. We answer with your treating physicians and objective imaging. If the insurer will not pay a fair number once treatment is complete, we file suit in the circuit court for the county where you were hurt and put the driver, the footage and the ride data on the record. Most cases settle, and for more when a jury is the alternative.

How long do you have to file a bicycle accident claim in Missouri?

Five years from the date of the crash under RSMo 516.120. That deadline protects your right to sue and nothing else. A bicycle case is proved with camera footage that is overwritten within days, ride data that can be lost with a dead battery or a replaced phone, and witnesses who were on the trail or at a bus stop and cannot be found a month later. Five years to file is not five years to investigate.

A wrongful death claim runs on a shorter clock: three years from the date of death under RSMo 537.100. When a rider survives for days or weeks in the hospital before passing, the two dates differ and we calendar both. Missouri lets the spouse, children or parents bring the claim directly, and the recovery covers the loss of the person's companionship, guidance and support, the pain suffered before death, and funeral costs.

Bicycle cases often bring in a public defendant. A RideKC or Metro Transit bus, a police cruiser or a city truck brings in Missouri's sovereign immunity rules and their exception for the operation of motor vehicles. A trail crossing with no warning, a bike lane that ended in a storm grate, or a signal that never detected a bicycle can bring in the exception for dangerous conditions of public property. Some cities require short written notice, so we identify every government defendant at intake.

Insurance deadlines run separately and sooner. Your own auto policy requires prompt notice of the crash even though you were riding, and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage usually requires that you notify your carrier and get its consent before settling with the driver. Settling without that consent can forfeit the coverage. Reporting a hit and run to the police right away also matters, because insurers require a prompt report before they pay an uninsured claim.

What should you do in the first 72 hours after a Missouri bicycle accident?

Get medical care the same day, even if you rode home. A concussion, a scaphoid fracture or a slow bleed does not always show at the scene. University Health Truman Medical Center and Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital in St. Louis, Mercy Hospital Springfield and CoxHealth, and University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia are the state's Level I trauma centers. Tell every provider that a car hit you while you were riding so the records say so.

Make sure police respond and write a report, and get the report number. Inside the cities that is the Kansas City Police Department, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, or the Springfield or Columbia Police Department; on the highways and county roads it is the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Photograph the vehicle, its plate and damage, the spot where you were hit, the bike lane or its absence, the lighting and your injuries. Get the driver's name, license, plate and insurance card, and the names of everyone who stopped.

Keep the bike and the helmet exactly as they are. Do not repair the frame, do not throw away the cracked helmet and do not wash the clothing. The bent fork and the crack in the shell are physical evidence of where and how hard you were hit. Save the ride: export the file from your bike computer or ride tracking app before it syncs over, and pull the footage from any helmet or handlebar camera. Tell us the location the same day so preservation letters go out before the footage cycles.

Notify your own auto insurer, and the insurer of any relative you live with, that you were struck while cycling so uninsured and underinsured coverage is on notice. Do not give a recorded statement to the driver's insurer, do not sign anything from them and do not accept an early check. If the driver seemed impaired, tell the officer, because driving while intoxicated is a crime under RSMo 577.010 and a conviction becomes evidence in your civil case. Keep a file of every bill, missed shift and a daily note about pain.

What Your Claim Can Cover

• Medical benefits from the driver's policy where no fault applies
• Serious injury claims for fractures, head and spinal injuries
• Fault rules explained for cyclists
• Delivery rider and e-bike claims
• Claims involving dangerous road design or construction