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What Direction Should Bicyclists Ride On The Roadway?
As all bicyclists know or should know, they are to obey the same laws of the road way as automobiles. They cannot travel on the wrong direction of the roadway. Unfortunately, most bicyclists do not know this. In spite of bicyclists often traveling in the wrong direction of the road way we have been very successful in many auto vs. bicycle cases involving a car coming out of a parking lot and hitting our bicycle client. It always comes down to negligence in these cases. Sometimes, some comparative negligence is found against our bicyclist client.
However, it is our practice in all of our cases to argue that the negligence should be on the car driver because most motorists are:
1. Aware that bicyclists will use the side walk even in their own directions, and;
2. Are unaware that it is illegal to do so.
If the motorist knows that there are bicyclists on sidewalks in general the motorist is required to pay attention to them as well as pedestrians. Therefore, most of the fault lays with the automobile for not being careful, regardless of the bicyclist’s negligent activity. This argument has succeeded for our law firm on many occasions.
If necessary, we take the deposition of the automobile driver and make him admit that he has often seen bicyclists on the side walk and is aware that bicyclists use the side walk and did not know at the time that it was illegal for bicyclists to use the sidewalk.
Lastly, most jurors are happy to learn that a bicyclist decides to be on the side walk instead of on the road which other drivers feel is dangerous and stressful. They will therefore not penalize our bicyclist client for being on the sidewalk. Automobile drivers in California understand that it is too scary to ride a bicycle in the street given the inadequacy of bicycle lanes in most California cities.
This is just a small example of how successful Nadrich and Cohen represents its bicycle victims. If you or your loved one was in a bicycle accident please call immediately the Bicycle Specialists at Nadrich & Cohen at 1-877-Nadrich
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