Excerpt from: Motorcycle Lawyer
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| February 21, 2007 | | Driving Under the Influence Not Always A Contributor to Accidents | The Hurt report notes that many motorcycle accidents occur when the rider has used alcohol or drugs. More than half of the studied accidents involved alcohol or drugs, an unlicensed rider, or excessive speed.
It would be a mistake to over rely on this statistic.
I am handling a case where an accident occurred on a straight road, no intersection, driveway, or entry onto the road is involved, and all the motorcyclist did was to drive straight and stay in his lane.
He happened to be in the lane nearest the curb. The defendant driver, in an SUV (of course), pulled over to the curb without checking the rear view mirror. He was looking for a parking space, but the curb was red, so there were no spaces. Not surprisingly, he failed to see (or hear) the Harley Davidson ridden by my client. He not only put the bike into the curb, but it went up onto the sidewalk, and stopped when it hit a pole.
Unbelievably, without any evidence of speed on the part of the motorcyclist, the defendant's insurance company is claiming that the accident is 75% the fault of the motorcyclist. Why? Because an hour after the accident, the rider's blood alcohol was about double the legal limit.
It will be interesting to see if a good judge will even allow this ridiculous defense to be presented to the jury. It will be more interesting to see if the jury is so prejudiced about alcohol and motorcycles that it buys some part of the argument.
Just to emphasize, at least to this point, there is no claim that the rider could have in any way avoided the crash, there is no claim that the rider in any way caused the crash, and there is no claim that reaction times played any role in the accident.
Plainly and simply, this is a bold appeal to irrational prejudice.
Stay tuned to see how this one ends. Unfortunately, it will be awhile. In the meantime, my client is without his motorcycle (for which there has been no offer of repair costs), can't work, and has undergone multiple surgeries.
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