What if My Motorcycle Accident Was Caused by a Dangerous Road or Pothole?
A motorcycle rider who is thrown from his or her bike can suffer horrendous injury, disfigurement, and even death. Sometimes another driver is the cause, but other times the road itself is the culprit. In either case, negligence needs to be proven in order to receive financial compensation.
Craig Swapp & Associates can help you find the answer to the question “what if my motorcycle accident was caused by a dangerous road or pothole?”
Road Maintenance
With their two-wheeled balancing act, any fault in a road can cause a bike to tip, skid, or roll much more easily than other vehicles. Additionally, if a car or truck swerves to avoid road hazards, they can take out a bike as well.
Utah road construction zones accounted for 288 serious injuries and sixty-seven fatalities in five years. Poorly maintained and marked roadways cause many more needless crashes every year.
Hazards of improper maintenance are much more dangerous to motorcycles than they are to cars and trucks:
- Potholes
- Broken or absent traffic lights
- Improperly placed or eroded safety barriers
- Insufficient lighting
- Improper guardrails
- Lack of highway rumble strips
- Inadequate traffic control in construction zones
- Painted lines that have faded into obscurity
- Telephone poles or barriers obstructing view
Who Rules the Roads
It is the responsibility of the federal, state, and local governments to plan, build, and maintain American roads safely. But finding who controls what portion of those roads can be tricky, and so can proving them responsible since our government makes laws to protect itself and limit its liability.
The Utah administrative codes are dizzying. They designate different levels of government for different areas of the roads. There is a distinction of maintenance responsibility between class A roads (state roads) and class B (county roads) and class C roads (city roads). Anything termed a “local road” could be governed by the county, a municipality, or a federal government agency.
The breakdown of responsibility for road maintenance can be extremely fine: the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is responsible for cross-street underpass lighting at interchanges with on-off ramps, while local government is responsible for cross-street underpass lighting where no interchange on- or off-ramps occur.
Additionally, maintenance crews who are outsourced to build government roads may actually be the guilty parties if they are negligent through acts such as not properly marking construction zones, improperly placing detour barrels leading motorcycles into unsafe terrain, or leaving construction tools or debris in the road.
Business owners or landowners who control a strip of ground could create unsafe road conditions that lead to a motorcycle crash as well.
If you wonder “what if my motorcycle accident was caused by a dangerous road or pothole,” the next question is “who is responsible for that and how do I prove it?”
How to Investigate Your Unsafe Road Case
A Salt Lake City motorcycle accident lawyer from Craig Swapp & Associates will know how to investigate a motorcycle accident to find what caused the motorcycle to lose control. By gathering evidence at the scene; noting the position of construction materials, signs, and hindrances to visibility; interviewing witnesses; and more, we can piece together the sequence of events that led to your crash. The next step will involve wading through the chain of command to see where responsibility lies.
We will also fight insurance companies to win you the best financial awards, should that be appropriate, or go to battle for you in court if a fair settlement can’t be negotiated out of court.
Utah Representation
It’s unfair if you suffered at the hands of someone else’s negligence, and you shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden alone. If an unsafe road has hurt you or someone you love, call Craig Swapp and Associates at 1-800-404-9000 to learn more about your situation at no cost or obligation to you. We’ll explain how we’ve handled cases like yours and let you know if we think you should seek compensation.
