Identifying Knoxville Bicycle Collision Causes

Bicycle accidents are often deadly for riders and it is essential to discover the causes of these crashes in order to prevent them. The League of American Bicyclists has published a comprehensive report entitled Every Bicyclist Counts that provides information on the top causes of rider fatalities.

When a bicycle rider is injured or killed in a collision, a personal injury lawyer can help. Determining who is to blame is essential so victims can pursue a claim for compensation.

Top Causes of Bicycle Collisions

The League of American Bicyclists obtained data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and then cross-checked information on bicycle collisions with reports in the paper about how the accident happened. The accidents that were included in the report occurred between February of 2011 and February of 2013. In total, there were 628 fatal collisions in the report in which the bicyclist died in the accident.

The report showed that the driver and not the bicycle rider was to blame in the majority of cases. Only 94 of the bicycle-rider deaths were believed to have been caused by the bike riders, with the rest of the fatalities likely attributed to actions of motorists in passenger vehicles.

While there were many reasons for bike accidents, some of the top causes of deadly collisions identified included:

• Drivers operating their vehicles in a careless way.
• Hit-and-run collisions in which drivers left the scene after striking and killing a bicycle rider.
• Drivers who were intoxicated at the time of the collision.

A close look was also taken at the specific types of bicycle crashes most likely to lead to death:

• An estimated 40 percent of bicycle rider deaths happened in hit-from-behind collisions. This is surprising considering Outside Online reports that this particular type of crash is not among the most common bicycle accidents since most crashes occur when riders are sideswiped. The fact that this type of collision accounts for such a large percentage of fatalities suggests that hit-from-behind crashes tend to be especially deadly.
• An estimated 10 percent of bicycle rider deaths happened in T-Bone collisions or crashes where the driver hit the bicyclist from the side.
• Eight percent of deadly crashes killing bicycle riders were head-on accidents.
• Six percent of bicyclist fatalities occurred in right-hook accidents.
• Six percent of bicyclist fatalities occurred when drivers failed to yield the right-of-way to bicycle riders as the law requires.
• Four percent of deaths of bicyclists occurred due to sideswipe accidents.
• Two percent of the fatalities occurred because the bicycle rider failed to yield the right-of-way.

In a total of 33 collisions, the cause of death was not determined because it was not listed. There were 146 bike accidents in total where the researchers could not determine the cause of the crash.

Unfortunately, when bicycle riders were killed by drivers, drivers faced relatively few consequences. Just 12 percent of the 238 deadly accidents involving reckless driving resulted in drivers facing criminal prosecution. The League of American Bicyclists hopes the report will prompt authorities to take a closer look at how accidents can be prevented.

A Knoxville personal injury lawyer can help collision victims. Contact G. Turner Howard III, Attorney at Law at (844) G3-Help-Me or 865-558-8030.