Sarasota Bicycle Accident Lawyer

Sarasota has the weather, the flat terrain and the trail network that make cycling ordinary here rather than seasonal. What it does not have, on most of its arterials, is separation between a bike lane and forty-five mile an hour traffic. A painted line is not a barrier, and the crashes I handle reflect that.

I am David Harris. I have represented injured people in Sarasota County since 2003.

Very few of them are a car striking a cyclist from behind on open road, which is what most people picture. The recurring patterns are closer in:

Each has a different evidentiary shape, and each tends to produce a different argument from the insurer about what the rider should have done.

Under Florida law a person riding a bicycle on a roadway has the rights and duties of the driver of a vehicle, with a few exceptions specific to cycling. That is the legal starting point and it is worth stating plainly, because the insurer's opening position is often that the rider did not belong on the road at all.

Two rules matter in these files. Section 316.083 requires a driver overtaking a bicycle to pass at a safe distance of not less than three feet, and since 2021 that applies whether the rider is in the travel lane or in a bicycle lane. And section 316.2065 lets a rider leave the bike lane or the right-hand edge when reasonably necessary to avoid a condition or potential conflict, naming surface hazards, parked and moving vehicles, turn lanes and substandard-width lanes among them. That is frequently the very manoeuvre an insurer calls unpredictable.

Since 2023 modified comparative under section 768.81 governs the split. More than half the and a rider recovers nothing; below that, recovery reduces by their share. Helmet use is worth mentioning here: Florida requires one only for riders under sixteen, so an adult riding without one is not breaking any rule, though expect the point raised anyway.

Florida's no- benefits follow the person. If you own a car with , that coverage pays your initial medical bills after a bicycle crash, whatever the and although no car of yours was involved. A resident relative's policy may cover you if you own no vehicle.

Section 627.736 sets the fourteen-day deadline for initial treatment. Cyclists miss it more than drivers do, because a rider who walks away with road rash and a sore shoulder does not feel like a hospital case. Fractures in the hand and wrist and shoulder separations are common in exactly that presentation. This is not medical advice, it is a calendar.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy also applies to you while cycling, which matters because Florida does not require drivers to carry coverage at all.

A bicycle is usually the only damaged property with a story to tell, and it is often thrown away or repaired within days. Keep it as it is. Keep the clothing and the helmet. If you were running a camera or a GPS computer, preserve the file before the device overwrites it.

The crash report is confidential for sixty days under section 316.066, available inside that window to the people involved and their representatives.

Call and you get me. If there is no claim worth bringing I will tell you so. If there is, I keep it myself.