Bike Law
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Know about bike accident lawyers that take on bicycle laws, safety, advocacy, and culture. Bike Law Network Lawyers in South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon. Bike Law is a national network of bicycle attorneys, founded in 1998.
Bike Law
2w ago
Love them or hate them, e-bikes continue to rise in popularity. At the same time, lawmakers struggle to keep up with the developing technologies. Every week I get multiple inquiries from people trying to navigate North Carolina’s e-bike laws. If you’re confused, you’re not alone.
We could easily fill a book with all the latest information and law related to e-bikes, but for now, we focus on the various classifications and how they affect North Carolina e-bike riders.
E-BIKES CLASSIFICATIONS
Federal law and the majority of state laws (not including North Carolina’s) divide e-bikes into th ..read more
Bike Law
1y ago
Recently, attorneys with the Bike Law network took a case to a trial against a titan of a defendant: the Texas Department of Transportation. TxDOT was represented by the Attorney General’s Office, one of Texas’ largest legal teams. We had a great client, but it was a tough case to prove. So tough, in fact, that TxDOT offered nothing to settle the case before trial.
The Crash that Altered Mike Bagg’s Life
On a sunny Sunday in October, our client, Mike Bagg, a 56-year-old surgeon, was riding his bike in a bike lane in El Paso. It turns out the bike lane had a gap between two concrete pane ..read more
Bike Law
1y ago
2023 got off to a rough start for Charlotte, North Carolina, particularly in the context of road safety. Within about a week, we lost a young woman who was riding her bicycle, a pedestrian killed in the same area of town, and four people were killed in a car wreck on I-85 in the University Area.
MOORE: MORE ROOM FOR CARS
Juxtaposed with these tragedies was the story of House Speaker Tim Moore and his reaction to Charlotte’s proposed transportation plan that attempts to reduce car usage and to improve and encourage alternate transportation methods like public transportation and bi ..read more
Bike Law
1y ago
Unless you’re a very recent follower of ours, you’ve heard us talk before about “contributory negligence.” To recap: “pure contributory negligence” is the law in North Carolina and only 3 other states (Alabama, Virginia, Maryland). In pure contributory negligence states, if a person is injured by someone else’s fault and the injured person contributes even the tiniest percent (1% is enough) to their own injuries, they collect no damages. In “comparative fault” states, the injured person’s damaged are reduced by the amount of their fault.
North Carolina’s contributory negligence law appli ..read more
Bike Law
1y ago
The laws dictating whether you can ride your bike on the sidewalk differ depending where you live. Different states have different laws on this matter, and local ordinances also vary. Let’s take a look at the legal framework behind various state laws related to cycling on sidewalks.
Find Your State
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Rhode Is ..read more
Bike Law
1y ago
At Bike Law North Carolina, we’ve seen our share of collisions between bicyclists and motorists at sidewalk intersections. Two recent cases, one which we tried and lost and the other, which settled favorably to our client, highlight the challenges, especially in North Carolina and other pure contributory negligence states (Alabama, Virginia and Maryland).
The Loss
In the first case, the bicyclist and a friend were riding on the sidewalk along a busy road. They were riding in the opposite direction of traffic. The sidewalk seemed an obvious choice, however, because they were riding much ..read more
Bike Law
2y ago
DRIVER ON METH KILLS 17 YEAR OLD BICYCLIST, BARROW COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY REFUSES TO CHARGE DRIVER WITH FELONY.
On August 23, 2020, at approximately 8:40pm, 17-year old Obianuju Osuegbu was on her way home from her summer job working at a grocery store. She had earned enough money that summer to buy herself a new ebike that she was very proud to have. “Uju”, as her mother Pauline and the rest of her family called her, was about a quarter mile from home when a vehicle driven by Chrissy Rawlins of Winder, Georgia, ran into her from behind and killed Miss Osuegbu. Miss Osuegbu was ..read more
Bike Law
2y ago
Finally, “Stop As Yield” (the much sought after common sense traffic law for bicyclists) is coming to Colorado in 2022, likely July 1st.
Stop as Yield, aka the “Safety Stop”
After the Governor Polis signs the law and the Safety Stop becomes effective, anyone who rides a bicycle or scooter on public roads will not have to lose momentum due to stop signs or wait as long at red lights.
So what difference will the Colorado Safety Stop make? Soon riders will “legally” not have to completely stop at stop signs when there is no traffic present. Red lights that would not change for ..read more
Bike Law
2y ago
It took losing at trial and a long appellate process, but it ended in a blow to contributory negligence in North Carolina. We just won an appeal on a bicycle crash case that happened in 2016 and came to us in 2018. The case went to trial during the spring of 2021. Our client was riding her bicycle straight through a greenlight when she was hit by an oncoming car turning left in the intersection. We lost the trial because the jury found our client contributorily negligent. We immediately appealed.
On April 19, 2022, we won the appeal. It is still left to be determined the value of the damages o ..read more
Bike Law
2y ago
BREAKING NEWS: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2021
WALLER, TEXAS
SIX COUNTS OF FELONY ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON
The 16 year old son of Waller, TX’s Jason and Jennifer Arnold who used his parents’ black F-250 to plow into our 6 cyclist clients and friends who were more than 70 miles into a training ride in preparation for Ironman Texas on the morning of Saturday, September 25th, 2021 on Business 290 East in Waller, Texas, has officially been INDICTED AND TAKEN INTO CUSTODY ON SIX COUNTS OF FELONY AGGRAVATED ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON — one for each of the people he almost ..read more