Attorneys Serving Motorcyclists Injured in Chicago & Across Illinois

Your legal and financial interests would be best served by retaining a motorcycle accident lawyers Chicago immediately after your accident so you are in the best position to be compensated.

As we described above, you have most likely been injured after a motorcycle accident. This means that you are unable to take pictures at the scene of the accident or do anything to document the accident in a way that could help prove your case. As a result, you will need help to help develop your case and reconstruct the scene of an accident.

At the same time, you are likely recovering from your injuries and receiving medical treatment. This will render you unable to deal with insurance adjusters and the specifics of your claim. Given that you will need to obtain as much as possible in damages, due to your injury, you will need help in the days after an accident.

The immediate aftermath of a motorcycle accident is a stressful time. There are many different things for you and your family to deal with and tending to your injuries should be your highest priority. Also, you are likely not a legal expert with knowledge of how to file a claim and deal with auto insurance adjusters.

An Illinois motorcycle accident attorney has the necessary expertise to help you through every step of this process. At the outset, we can:

• Order and review police reports
• Locate and talk to witnesses who were at the scene of the accident
• Hire experts to reconstruct the scene of the accident
• Photograph the scene of the accident and study damage to vehicles

We can also handle your personal injury claim communications with the insurance representative that are perhaps the most vital thing in the wake of your accident and critical to your receiving compensation for the accident. The attorney can negotiate for a possible settlement and can help maximize your compensation since they have a better idea of what your claim is worth. If a settlement agreement cannot be reached, your Illinois motorcycle accident attorney will represent you at trial and will fight vigorously in court on your behalf.

There is no obligation to talk to the other driver's insurance and you should not do so.

The other driver's insurance company adjuster will certainly want to speak with you after the accident. If they are the ones that will have to make a settlement payout, they will try every measure that they can in order to reduce the amount of money that they will have to pay. This includes trying to get you to make any type of admission that would hurt your claim, even if you are injured and not physically or mentally sharp. Insurance adjusters have been known to resort to trickery to get you to talk to them and then they will ask you loaded and skewed questions.

You are under no obligation whatsoever to talk to the other driver's insurance carrier. You should talk to your own motorcycle or health insurer so that they can work on your behalf, but you should not speak to the other driver's insurance since you can only lose by speaking with them.

Your attorney can help keep the other driver's insurance company at bay and keep them off your back when you have other things to worry about. You should be wary of speaking to anyone that you do not know during this time and should even have your own attorney present or on the line when you are talking to your own insurance company to make sure that your interests are protected at all times.

If there are circumstances that require you to talk to the other driver's insurance, make sure to follow your lawyer's guidance and do not do anything other than answer the exact question that was asked. Remember that the other insurance is not trying to use your words to have persuaded themselves to pay you more. Instead, they are likely going to try to use your own words against you.

If you have been hurt in a Chicago motorcycle accident, chances are that your injuries are not minor. Therefore, it will be imperative to receive either a settlement or an award that will fully compensate you for your injuries.

As you, as you are not at fault for the accident, most Chicago motorcycle accident cases will settle out of court.

The answer to this question is most likely yes. Nine in ten motorcycle accident cases settle before they go to trial. Insurance companies do not want to take your case all the way to trial and more than you. Trials are expensive and uncertain, and an insurance company always runs the risk that a jury would be sympathetic to your case, leaving them on the hook for a large damages award.

Therefore, it is likely that the liability insurer will at least try to make you a settlement offer. However, this is where you need to be careful. The at-fault driver's insurance representative will offer will likely not be for the full amount that your case is worth. They are banking on the fact that you may take their first offer, thereby saving them money.

This is where an experienced motorcycle accident attorney can help you. Since your lawyer has done this many times before and is experienced in motorcycle accident claims, they will know what your claim is worth and will be able to advise you whether the settlement offer makes sense for you. Sometimes, it makes sense for you to proceed towards trial because the insurance company simply will not make you a viable settlement offer. Even when that happens, most outstanding cases will settle on the eve of trial or at the very beginning of proceedings.

Negotiating with an insurance company is difficult for anyone because the insurance company has better knowledge than you since this is what they do every day and hopefully, this is your first motorcycle accident. Therefore, you need an attorney on your side to help neutralize your natural disadvantage in this area.

You have two years from the time of your injury to file your Illinois motorcycle accident case in an Illinois court.

Illinois law, like those in any state, has a statute of limitations which keeps you from having an unlimited amount of time to file your case. In Illinois, the statute of limitations for personal injury cases is two years from the time that your cause of action arose. In most cases, the cause of action arises at the time of your accident since that is when you are injured. However, in certain limited circumstances, the statute of limitations begins to run from the time that you knew or should have known that you were injured.

The statute of limitations is an unforgiving law. The court ultimately does not care that your injuries may have prevented you from being able to take the time to properly prepare a case either due to your injuries or other difficulties with investigating or filing the claim. When the law says two years, the court interprets that very strictly.

Therefore, it is vital to have an experienced attorney on your side to both help prepare the best possible case within the two years that you have and to help you navigate the court process because your failure to understand the laws will not persuade a court to give you more time.

You must prove that the negligent driver's actions or inactions were responsible for your injuries and that you were less than 50 percent at fault.

In the unlikely event that your motorcycle injury case goes to a trial, you will have to show that the other party was negligent in order to prevail. This will be the same as any other personal injury case in that you have to prove that the defendant was negligent to win the case.

Persuading a jury that a negligent driver actually caused your injuries requires that you prove four different things. They are as follows:

1. The other driver owed you a duty of care. In general, this is an easy element to prove because all drivers owe a duty of care to everyone else on the road.
2. The driver breached this duty of care. While a driver is not held to a standard of absolute perfection when they are on the road, they must act as a reasonable driver would. This means that they cannot do things such as speeding or make illegal turns because an ordinary reasonable driver would not do such things.
3. You must have suffered some sort of injury.
4. Your injury would not have happened but for the actions of the other driver.

If you were partially at fault for your own injuries, you may still be able to recover for them in court. In Illinois, so long as you are not more than 50 percent responsible for your injuries, you may still be able to recover, but your compensation will be reduced by the percentage that you were at fault for the accident. This could cover an instance in which a driver made an illegal turn, but your injuries were compounded by the fact that you were not wearing the proper protective gear. Another situation where you may have been injured but bear some of the faults is if you were traveling above the speed limit in your motorcycle.

How much your case is worth depends on the number of damages that you have suffered from your motorcycle injury.

There are numerous components to a motorcycle injury settlement or jury award. The amount of money that you receive is supposed to put you in the same position as if your accident never happened. This includes not only paying you for the physical injuries that you have suffered but also for the other economic costs such as time that you miss from work. Your case should cover both costs that you have already incurred as well as those that will impact you in the future.

Because of the lost wages component of your damages, it is difficult to give an exact estimate of the damage amount that you would receive. Two people can suffer the same exact injuries and receive different settlements because one person may be prevented from working due to the physical nature of their work while the other may be able to continue on the job, albeit with accommodations.

We could cite studies about what the average motorcycle settlement is, but that would not tell you anything because every case is different. Obviously, the more catastrophic and sustained your injuries are, the larger your settlement.

Therefore, it is vital to get the maximum possible amount in a settlement for your injuries because it will be your only chance to be compensated for the accident. Obtain help from an Illinois motorcycle accident attorney so you can learn how much your case is worth.