Woodstock Motorcycle Accident Lawyers

Cherokee County residents who ride motorcycles value their freedom. Whether they are diehards who make riding a way of life, to weekend warriors whose other ride is a minivan, bikers get hooked on the connection between man, machine, and road that only a motorcycle can deliver. Which is why it is so tragic when a biker suffers a catastrophic injury in a crash that was not the biker’s fault. A devastating collision robs bikers not just of their health and wellbeing, but also of the sense of freedom they get from rolling down the road in the saddle. 

Motorcyclists injured in deadly, catastrophic crashes deserve to receive compensation from anyone whose carless, reckless, or intentionally-harmful actions take away their ability to ride and to enjoy their lives. At the Law Offices of Kyle E. Koester, LLC, our goal is to get bikers the money they need to repair their bikes and their lives. Contact us today.

Our Woodstock Motorcycle Injury Law Practice

Attorney Kyle Koester knows what it is like to have a life’s passion taken away by circumstances out of one’s control. As a teenager, a heart condition robbed him of his ability to continue playing football, and forced him to reassess how his life might turn out. Kyle channelled the life lessons he learned from that setback into a professional dedication to helping people injured through no fault of their own. 

Kyle and his team take special pride in helping motorcyclists obtain the financial compensation they need to repair their lives after a catastrophic crash. He fights to make sure insurance companies treat injured bikers fairly and with respect. When a biker’s case goes to trial, he stands up for bikers’ rights to be treated the same as any other motorist harmed in a crash, explaining why his clients deserve every penny of compensation the law entitles them to receive from careless drivers and others who did them wrong.  

The Tragic Toll of Georgia Motorcycle Accidents

In 2018, 154 motorcyclists died in crashes on Georgia roads, a tragic tally that has stayed more-or-less consistent for years. Here in Cherokee County, we lose a handful of motorcyclists annually to accidents on local roads. Many multiples of those numbers of motorcyclists sustain serious, life-altering injuries in crashes each year.

Motorcycle crashes inflict severe injuries on riders lucky enough to survive them. In a typical bike wreck, a rider gets thrown from the saddle against another vehicle or to the ground. The force of the impact and its aftermath can cause:

• Traumatic Brain Injuries. Georgia law requires all motorcyclists to wear helmets, a rule that – while unpopular among some riders – undoubtedly saves dozens of lives per year, and reduces the severity of many more head injuries. Still, helmets can only blunt the force of a crash impact, not eliminate it altogether. Helmeted riders (and, of course, anyone who rides without a helmet) can still sustain traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) that cause a range of serious, life-altering impairments. In the worst cases, riders who suffer TBIs lose, and never fully regain, consciousness, while others can be left with major challenges, such as impaired cognitive, motor, or emotional function, and long-lasting physical effects such as headaches, fatigue, balance issues, and “brain fog”. 
• Spinal Cord Injuries. A violent impact against a vehicle, guardrail, or road surface twists, bends, and batters a biker’s body, damaging the rider’s spinal column and the delicate bundle of nerves the spinal column protects, known as the spinal cord. The resultant swelling, bruising, or tearing of cord leaves victims partially or totally paralyzed, many of them bound to spend the rest of their lives in wheelchairs, needing constant, and costly, treatment and support. 
• Severe Orthopedic Injuries. Bikers sent tumbling from their rides in a catastrophic crash face a high probability of sustaining severe bone breaks, muscle tears, joint dislocations, and damage to tendons and ligaments. The worst of these injuries can force doctors to amputate a rider’s limb. Even those whose injuries will heal in time may face significant disabilities and chronic pain. 
• Road Rash. Despite a name suggestive of a child’s boo-boo, severe road rash is a life-threatening injury that can be difficult for doctors to treat. The the friction between the biker and the road surface tears away skin, embeds dirt, grime and debris in a wound, and can even cause a thermal burn from heat build-up. Road rash can require skin graft surgeries to treat, and poses a high risk of deadly infection if not property cared-for. 

This is not a complete list of the injuries a motorcyclist can sustain in a catastrophic crash, of course. Virtually any injury you can imagine may happen in a bad bike wreck. No matter what kind of injury you or a loved one sustained in a Woodstock-area motorcycle crash, the team at the Law Office of Kyle E. Koester, LLC, has the resources and experience to help you recover the compensation you deserve. 

Woodstock Motorcycle Crash Victims’ Rights

Motorcyclists have rights, no matter how often car and truck drivers treat bikers like second-class citizens on the road. In an accident caused by someone else’s bad decision or reckless action, bikers have the same rights to seek compensation as any other user of Cherokee County’s highways and byways. 

At the Law Offices of Kyle E. Koester, LLC, we work to make sure motorcyclists get that compensation. We refuse to put up with the double-standard bikers often face from insurance companies and defense attorneys, who too-often act as if bikers are to blame for the injuries they sustain in a crash. No one should get away with treating bikers like they don’t have rights. Our team fights to make sure that anyone who tries to stiff a biker out of financial compensation gets held accountable. 

Legal Liability for Damages in a Motorcycle Crash

Georgia law holds any person whose careless, reckless, or intentionally-harmful conduct injures someone else legally liable for money damages. That is the basic concept behind “suing” someone for a “personal injury.” In the American legal system, if you hurt someone, then you owe them money to pay them for the harm you caused. Much of the time, the liable person’s insurance may cover those “damages,” but if not, then the liable person has an obligation to pay damages out of his or her own pocket. 

Careless or reckless car and truck drivers cause many of the catastrophic motorcycle accidents we handle at the Law Offices of Kyle E. Koester, LLC. They fail to take care around motorcyclists, cutting motorcycles off by changing lanes without looking to see them in a blind spot, turning left directly into the path of a motorcycle approaching in the opposite direction, or opening a car door into a motorcycle’s path. Those drivers (and their auto insurance carriers) typically have legal liability for our clients’ injuries. 

Individual drivers are not the only parties who may have liability to a biker injured in a catastrophic collision, however. Under Georgia law, liability can extend to others – individuals, businesses, and even public entities – whose actions or decisions may have also (or uniquely) contributed to a crash. For example:

• In a motorcycle crash with a commercial vehicle, the employer of the driver of the vehicle may have liability for the biker’s injuries because employers generally have legal responsibility for their employees’ actions in the course of their work.
• Motorcycles have particular vulnerability to uneven, grooved, or sand-and-gravel-covered road surfaces. A local or state government road crew that causes those sorts of dangerous conditions and fails to give warnings to motorcyclists about them may face legal liability for the biker’s injuries. 
• Bikers have a right to expect that the motorcycles they buy, and the after-market bike parts they install on them, will be safe and free from defects. Manufacturers of faulty motorcycles or motorcycle parts may have legal liability under Georgia law for a biker’s injuries in a crash caused by those defective products.

These are just a few examples of how liability can work in a Woodstock-area motorcycle crash. One of the jobs of an experienced Cherokee County motorcycle accident injury lawyer like Kyle Koester is to dig into the facts of a crash to identify all parties who may owe money to an injured biker, so that the biker has the best chance possible to recover maximum compensation. 

Types of Damages for a Catastrophic Motorcycle Crash

Injured motorcyclists often ask us how much money they can obtain as compensation for their injuries in a crash that wasn’t their fault. Our answer is usually something along the lines of: “it depends” on the circumstances of the accident and on who may have legal liability for it. Come talk to us about your motorcycle crash so that we can get a sense of the scope of damages you might expect to recover. 

What we can say is that after a Woodstock motorcycle crash that was not the biker’s fault, the injured biker typically has the right to take legal action seeking “damages” that include compensation for:

• Medical costs of treating the injury; 
• Lost wages and future earnings resulting from missing work because of the injury; 
• Repair and replacement costs for the rider’s bike and any other property damaged in the crash; 
• Expenses for services the biker has to hire because of the injury, such as childcare help or in-home nursing care;
• Pain and suffering caused by the injury, which include both physical discomfort and mental anguish; and
• Loss of life enjoyment & damage to personal relationships caused by the crash and injury. 

The size of these damages can vary widely from crash-to-crash. Also, as a practical matter, the amount of money an injured biker might recover also depends on who has legal liability for the bike wreck. A crash caused by a well-insured commercial driver may, in effect, be worth more than a crash caused by a driver who carries the minimum Georgia auto liability insurance.

Talk to an experienced Woodstock motorcycle accident injury lawyer from the Law Office of Kyle E. Koester to evaluate the possible value of a claim for money damages arising from your motorcycle crash.

How We Help Injured Bikers

Not sure what lawyers do to help motorcyclists injured in catastrophic crashes and the families of bikers who tragically die in accidents? Here’s a quick explanation (with the caution that every case is different, so the services we provide to our clients can vary):

• We investigate motorcycle crashes. Who has legal liability for injuries caused by a bike wreck depends on the facts and circumstances of the crash itself. Our team frequently investigates how an accident happened – not just at the moment of impact itself, but the whole series of events leading up to a collision – to identify all parties who may have legal liability to our client, and which of those have the financial resources (either through insurance or their own assets) to pay our clients the damages they deserve.
• We negotiate with liability insurance carriers. The majority of Georgia motorcycle accident injury lawsuits settle out-of-court, particularly when insurance companies acknowledge that their customer has legal liability and the policy should cover the injured motorcyclist’s damages. However, insurance companies do not love writing checks, and often it takes skilled, determined negotiating on the part of the biker’s lawyer to convince the insurance company to pay the maximum.
• We take cases to trial. Some cases do not settle out of court. When that happens, the team at the Law Office of Kyle E. Koester, LLC has the experience and know-how to win cases at trial in Georgia courts. Unlike some lawyers, we welcome going to trial and making arguments to judges and juries.

Your Woodstock Motorcycle Crash Injury Lawyer

Cherokee County motorcyclists deserve respect and equal treatment as users of local roads. If a catastrophic motorcycle wreck in the Woodstock area leaves you or a loved one badly injured, you deserve compensation from anyone at fault. The Law Offices of Kyle E. Koester, LLC, can help. Call us at 770-744-5250 or contact us online for a free case evaluation.