Our Gainesville, Georgia personal injury lawyers are ready to fight for the rights of injured riders after they’ve been in a frightening bicycle accident. Weaver Law Injury Attorneys has decades of experience advocating for bicycle accident victims who have been struck by careless drivers.
After an accident, don’t wait to get the help you need to recover physically and financially. For a free consultation, contact us today.
If you endure a serious injury in a bicycle crash caused by a reckless motorist, a lawyer can be an important protection for your case. It’s also the best way to guarantee you receive the most for your recovery. This support is critical to pay for the best care available so you can return to your bike rides again as soon as possible.
If your accident only leaves some minor scrapes and soreness behind, you may not need a lawyer’s help. But when broken bones, a head injury, or a permanent disfigurement are involved, medical expenses rise, and car insurance companies begin to look for ways to limit the support you receive. They stop being helpful and start looking to save money.
These are just a few of the advantages a Gainesville GA Bicycle Accident lawyer can give to your case and your recovery:
We get aggressive on your behalf and don’t allow the facts to be changed. We leave insurance companies no choice but to accept full accountability. We insist on the maximum recovery support for our clients and their families.
Riders in Gainesville have a lot of trails and parks to ride through, such as Midland Greenway. Unfortunately, for cyclists looking for a longer run or trying to ride to work or school, finding local roads featuring bike lanes can be difficult.
Riders may have to merge with busy traffic on roads like Green Street. Georgia gives bicyclists the right to use regular traffic lanes, like any driver, but motorists can be ignorant of the law or just simply careless and not give them the space they need for safety. (Georgia Vehicular Code 40-6-294)
Cyclists are often asked to ride alongside heavy, fast-moving vehicles with little more than thin clothing and perhaps a helmet as protection. Most cyclists know to be extremely cautious when sharing the road with motorists. Unfortunately, even the most cautious cyclist could still be severely harmed or killed if a motorist is negligent.
These are just a few of the most common ways that drivers can put bicyclists at risk:
Gainesville’s 2025 Metropolitan Transportation Plan promises added bikeways and improved intersection designs for pedestrians and cycling safety, but for now, riders travel at extreme risk when having to enter traffic.
Drivers who force impacts and cause injuries must be held fully accountable for their actions. Riders must get support from the time of the accident, through recovery, and until they can get on a bike again.
The Georgia Governor’s Office of Traffic Safety reports that our state saw a tragic 29 lives lost in bicycle collisions in 2022. That was up from 15 lives lost in 2021.
Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) data also shows a tragic spike in serious bicycle accidents in Gainesville and Hall County more recently. Its figures reveal there were 16 serious bicycle accidents across Hall County in 2023. That was a leap from 2022, when there were only five serious bicycle accidents recorded. It remains to be seen if this troubling trend will continue when official accident data for 2024 is released.
There are very few true bike lanes in Gainesville. Riders must often rely on a driver’s focus to stay safe as they merge into a traffic lane.
Gainesville does have a few standard bike lanes to offer riders a safe route to school, to work, or just for a ride for exercise.
These are some of the most common bike lanes found across Georgia:
These are the conventional bike lanes you’ll see along the right side of roads, marked off by two white lines. They don’t feature any other protection for riders than those thin lines. Bicyclists are vulnerable when distracted drivers veer over into these bike lanes. They are also in jeopardy when drivers must cross over a bike lane to make a right turn. Drivers will switch lanes without checking their mirrors and blind spots for a biker.
A bike lane that’s set aside from traffic by more than just painted lines. Protected bike lanes can be separated from traffic by plastic rods, cement islands, or even by rows of parked cars. Atlanta has protected lanes and has also recently added several “cycle tracks” that are protected and actually feature bike lanes in both directions on one side of the road.
Shared routes or sharrows are normal streets with no bike lanes. They simply feature lane markings and signs to remind drivers that they are likely to share their lanes with cyclists. A shared route designation would likely be applied to streets with less traffic and slower speed limits, perhaps away from busier routes. A sharrow (share + arrow) refers to the lane-marking on these streets that shows a bicycle symbol with two arrows above it.
These paths offer the most protection from traffic, because they generally offer trails that stay far away from roads. Riders and pedestrians share the Midland Greenway. Bicyclists should always yield to pedestrians on shared-use trails. The Highlands to Islands Trail is another bikeway that can offer riders a safe way to travel around Lake Lanier.
The most important legal protection bicyclists have is their right to the road granted by Georgia Vehicular Code.
Georgia law designates bicycles as vehicles, and that means riders have the same rights as drivers to most lanes around Gainesville. The law requires riders to stick to the right side of the road when safely possible. But when hazards emerge or a rider is going as fast as other traffic, the rider has the right to take a full lane.
Riders can take any lane when necessary, even if there is a bike lane available. The only place bicyclists can’t go is on an interstate or on an interstate-like highway.
Bicyclists must also follow all traffic laws that would apply to drivers, where applicable.
40-6-294(a) Cyclist’s Right to the Lane
“ Every person operating a bicycle upon a roadway shall ride as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable, except when turning left or avoiding hazards to safe cycling, when the lane is too narrow to share safely with a motor vehicle, when traveling at the same speed as traffic, or while exercising due care when passing a standing vehicle or one proceeding in the same direction; provided, however, that every person operating a bicycle away from the right side of the roadway shall exercise reasonable care and shall give due consideration to the other applicable rules of the road.”
Another critical code in keeping riders safe involves when drivers can go around riders. All drivers should only pass a cyclist in their lane if they have at least 3 feet of space to do so. If there isn’t enough space, drivers must wait. The Georgia Department of Driver Services also asks that drivers switch lanes when possible before passing a rider.
40-6-56 Passing Georgia Cyclists With At Least 3 Feet of Space
40-6-294(c) Cyclists Can’t Ride More than Two Abreast
40-6-294(e)(1) Cyclists Under 16-years-old Must Wear an Approved Helmet
Cyclists lack the same protective features that shield vehicle occupants from the brunt of the impact in a collision. No airbags, no seat belts, and no padding can cushion the blow from a vehicle and the road surface.
These are just a few of the types of injuries that can send riders to Northeast Georgia Medical Center emergency room:
If someone else was partially or fully responsible for the accident that caused your injuries, you might be entitled to recover damages for your losses. “Damages” is the legal term for money awarded to victims in personal injury claims.
With the help of a bike accident attorney, you can establish a solid claim to prove the other person’s liability and demand the compensation you need. This could include money to reimburse you for:
Yes. Georgia bicyclists 16 and older aren’t required to wear safety helmets. The fact that you weren’t wearing a helmet doesn’t erase the liability a driver would bear for causing a collision. Victims could seek full recovery compensation.
Georgia drivers are required to carry specific minimum amounts of liability insurance by law. Liability insurance covers the costs of other people’s medical and property damage bills if the insured is at fault in a crash. However, not all drivers comply with statewide insurance laws. Even those who do may not have enough insurance to cover 100 percent of the costs associated with injuries or damage after a bicycle wreck. If you are injured in a Georgia bicycle accident, this is where your auto policy’s uninsured (UM) or underinsured (UIM) motorist insurance could kick in to help you. UM and UIM insurance are optional in Georgia, but they’re automatically added to all insurance policies, so you should have them unless you actively opted out. UM and UIM insurance are meant to cover your costs after an accident involving a driver with no or insufficient insurance. Luckily, cyclists who carry UM or UIM insurance on their cars can rely on this coverage for bicycle accidents with uninsured or underinsured drivers.
You don’t need any money to hire Weaver Law Injury Attorneys to represent your case. We don’t charge our clients any upfront money. First of all, we don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. If we lose, you don’t owe anything. If the case is successful, you still won’t have to struggle to pay our attorney’s fee. Our payment comes out of the settlement money you receive.
If you’ve been seriously injured in a bicycle accident in Gainesville, Georgia, contact Weaver Law Injury Attorneys today. We’ve been serving North Georgia for more than 20 years and continue to advocate for safe bike rides and full support for accident victims.
Our Bike accident attorneys in Gainesville offer a free consultation to review your case and answer your questions. Contact us online to schedule your free consultation. There’s no obligation for this free case review.
And if you feel we can help you secure more for your injury, you don’t need to worry about finding the money to hire a bike accident lawyer. We don’t earn anything for our services unless we recover money for you. Then our fee comes out of the bike accident settlement check that a car insurance company must provide to you and your family.
