Motorcycle Accidents Attorney in
Santa Barbara County, California

Helping Injured Riders & Their Families

Andrade Law Offices has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for the injured in California, including motorcycle accident victims. If you or someone you love has been injured in a motorcycle collision caused by another motorist, you may be entitled to compensation to cover your medical bills and other expenses. Our Santa Barbara personal injury lawyer helps injured motorcyclists and their families obtain the financial compensation they are due.

Motor vehicle operators have an obligation to exercise the care required to prevent accidents. This includes sharing the road with motorcycles and motorcyclists. Unfortunately, drivers sometimes engage in careless and reckless behavior such as distracted driving, aggressive driving, impaired driving, fatigued driving, speeding, failure to yield, and failure to obey traffic signals. This can result in serious or even catastrophic injury and death.

When careless or reckless behavior cause a motorcycle accident and leave a rider seriously injured, the at-fault motorist can be held accountable. Swift legal action can ensure that the injured are compensated for medical bills, property damage, lost income, pain, suffering, and more.

Contact Andrade Law Offices for a free motorcycle accident case review.

Fighting for Riders' Rights in Santa Barbara, CA

Andrade Law Office has a successful track record of pursuing motorcycle accident claims for clients in Santa Barbara and across Southern California. Founding attorney Steven R. Andrade has three decades of trial experience that make him well qualified to handle high stakes personal injury and wrongful death cases, including those caused by motorcycle collisions. He has a reputation as a tenacious lawyer who is not afraid to take any case to trial.

In a recent motorcycle accident case, the insurance company for the at-fault driver settled for $1.15 million. Million-dollar settlements are not unusual for Andrade Law Offices.

Now is the time to involve an attorney who can fight for your rights if you were injured or lost a loved one in a motorcycle accident. When you work with our firm for your motorcycle accident case, you pay nothing unless we obtain compensation for you. We also offer a free initial consultation so you can better understand your rights and options at this point in time.

Why Motorcycle Accidents Occur

More people than ever are riding motorcycles, and motorcyclists can now be found in all age and demographic groups. California is home to more than 830,000 registered motorcycles and more than 1.4 million riders.

Most motorcyclists recognize that they are constantly at risk while riding. The open cockpit design of motorcycles means that they lack the passenger protections of cars and trucks. Many riders are very safety conscious and follow traffic laws because they understand the dangers of a serious accident.

Despite the fact that California has more registered motorcycles than any state, many drivers of cars and trucks in California are not alert to motorcyclists on the roads. Drivers frequently overlook motorcycles on the road because of their more narrow profile, pulling out in front of them at intersections and otherwise causing serious accidents.

According to the California Highway Patrol, motorcycle collisions in our state in 2013 resulted in 475 fatalities and 13,143 injuries. Many of those were preventable accidents caused by other motorists. Federal traffic data shows that bikers are more than 26 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than passenger car occupants. Riders are five times more likely to sustain injuries.

Deaths in motorcycle accidents have increased by more than 50 percent nationwide since 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Motorcycle accident deaths and injuries have increased in California as well.

The Hurt Report: Motorcycle Accidents

An influential study conducted in Southern California, entitled “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” known as “The Hurt Report” for its principal author, H.H. Hurt, published a number of notable findings about motorcycle accidents.

According to this study:

• About three-fourths of motorcycle accidents involved collisions with other vehicles, which were most often passenger automobiles.

• Drivers of other vehicles caused about two-thirds of multi-vehicle motorcycle accidents, by violating the motorcyclist's right of way.

• The failure of drivers to see motorcycles in traffic is a frequent cause of motorcycle accidents. Motorists frequently failed to see the motorcycle before a collision or overlooked the biker until a collision was unavoidable.

• Motorcycle accidents are most likely to occur at intersections, with the at-fault driver violating the motorcycle's right-of-way and often disregarding a traffic signal.

• One-fourth of motorcycle accidents involved collisions with roadway obstacles or fixed objects and did not involve other vehicles.

• Vehicle failure accounted for less than 3 percent of single-vehicle motorcycle accidents, and most of those were single-vehicle accidents where control was lost due to a puncture causing a flat.

• Motorcycle defects rarely caused accidents and were most likely due to deficient or defective maintenance.

If a motorcyclist is not killed in an accident, he or she can expect to suffer injuries that range from cuts and scrapes to broken bones, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and, in some cases, loss of feet, toes, hands, fingers, and limbs.

The most important thing a motorcyclist can do for protection is wear a U.S. Department of Transportation-compliant helmet. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says helmets are estimated to be 37 percent effective in preventing fatal injuries to motorcycle riders and 41 percent for motorcycle passengers. In other words, for every 100 motorcycle riders killed in crashes while not wearing helmets, 37 of them could have been saved had all 100 worn helmets.

Interested in learning more? Call a Santa Barbara personal injury lawyer today.