How Do Motorcycle Accident Claims Work in California?

Lane splitting is legal, and still argued

Vehicle Code § 21658.1 defines lane splitting as driving a two-wheeled motorcycle between rows of stopped or moving vehicles in the same lane, on divided or undivided streets, roads, or highways, and allows the California Highway Patrol to develop educational guidelines on it. The CHP and the DMV both state that lane splitting is legal in California. The CHP also tells drivers that intentionally blocking or impeding a motorcyclist in a way that could cause harm, or opening a door to impede one, is illegal.

Legal does not mean beyond dispute. The CHP’s safety tips warn that danger increases with overall speed and with the difference in speed between the motorcycle and surrounding traffic, advise against splitting next to large vehicles, and note that riding on the shoulder is illegal and is not lane splitting. After a crash, an insurer may argue that the rider was splitting too fast or riding in a blind spot. Those arguments go to comparative fault: a rider’s share of fault, if proven, reduces the recovery rather than barring it, and the other driver’s duties, such as checking mirrors and signaling before changing lanes, still apply.

The helmet law, and how it is used in a claim

Vehicle Code § 27803 requires every driver and passenger on a motorcycle, motor-driven cycle, or motorized bicycle on the highway to wear a safety helmet meeting the requirements of § 27802. Wearing one means having it on the head, fastened with the straps, and sized to fit securely without excessive movement. The CHP notes that the helmet law took effect on January 1, 1992.

After a crash, the defense may argue that a rider without a compliant, fastened helmet was partly at fault for a head injury, and may point to Evidence Code § 669, under which violating a safety statute can create a presumption of negligence. That argument concerns how badly the rider was hurt, not who caused the crash. It still needs proof that the missing or non-compliant helmet actually caused or worsened the specific injury, which often means medical or biomechanical evidence. Injuries a helmet could not have affected, such as a broken leg, are a different matter.

Left turns, lane changes, and the other driver’s duties

When a driver violates a traffic statute and the violation causes the kind of harm the statute was meant to prevent, to someone it was meant to protect, California law presumes the driver failed to use due care, subject to rebuttal (Evidence Code § 669). A police report or citation can be important evidence, but it does not always decide civil fault.

The DMV’s handbook reminds drivers that motorcycles are smaller and harder to see and easily disappear in blind spots, and tells drivers to check for them and use their mirrors when changing lanes or entering a road. Two familiar collision patterns are addressed directly by the Vehicle Code, and a third by the handbook:

• A car turning left across the rider’s path. A driver turning left or making a U-turn must yield to approaching vehicles close enough to be a hazard at any time during the turn, and keep yielding until the turn can be made with reasonable safety (Vehicle Code § 21801(a)). Speed, sight lines, and the timing of the turn are usually the disputed facts.
• A car changing lanes or merging into the rider. A vehicle must be driven as nearly as practical within a single lane and may not move from it until the move can be made with reasonable safety (§ 21658(a)), and no one may turn or move right or left on a roadway until it is reasonably safe and, when another vehicle may be affected, after an appropriate signal (§ 22107).
• Doors and following distance. The DMV tells drivers to check for motorcyclists before opening a door next to traffic, to allow a three-second following distance, and never to try to pass a motorcycle in the same lane.

Evidence and injuries

Keep the motorcycle in its post-crash condition until it has been documented, and do not let it be repaired or sold for salvage before then. Keep the helmet, jacket, gloves, boots, and any camera footage; damage to a helmet can help show how and where the head was struck. Photograph the scene, the road surface, scrape and skid marks, debris, traffic controls, and the view from the other driver’s position, and collect witness names and nearby video before it is overwritten.

Motorcycle crashes can cause fractures, skin and soft-tissue injuries that may need surgery or grafting, spinal injuries, and traumatic brain injuries whose symptoms are not always obvious at first. Follow-up care, imaging, and a steady record of how the injuries affect work and daily life matter as much as the emergency-room chart.

Insurance, including your own

The at-fault driver’s liability insurance is the usual starting point, and an employer whose driver was working may add coverage. In California, a bodily-injury liability policy for a motor vehicle generally must include uninsured-motorist coverage, and a policy with that coverage must also include underinsured-motorist coverage, unless the named insured deletes or reduces the coverage by written agreement (Insurance Code § 11580.2(a), (p)).

A car policy’s uninsured-motorist coverage may not follow a rider onto a motorcycle. Under the statute, that coverage does not apply to injuries while occupying a motor vehicle owned by an insured, which can include a household member, or leased to one for six months or longer, unless the vehicle occupied is an insured motor vehicle under the policy, and “motor vehicle” in that provision means any self-propelled vehicle (§ 11580.2(c)(6)). Review the motorcycle policy’s own uninsured- and underinsured-motorist limits, any medical-payments coverage, and every household policy. Settling with the at-fault driver without the uninsured-motorist insurer’s written consent can also affect that coverage (§ 11580.2(c)(3)).

Reporting and deadlines

A driver, including a motorcyclist, involved in a crash that injures or kills anyone or causes more than $1,000 in property damage to any one person must report it to the DMV on form SR-1 within 10 days (Vehicle Code § 16000).

Most injury lawsuits must be filed within two years (Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1). A claim against a public entity, such as one over a road defect or a crash with a government vehicle, generally requires a written government claim within six months (Gov. Code § 911.2). Certain uninsured-motorist claims require a lawsuit, an agreement, or a formal arbitration demand within two years (Insurance Code § 11580.2(i)). Insurance negotiations generally do not extend any of these deadlines.