With the Wisconsin winter finally behind us, the roads can become crowded with bicycles and motorcycles which inevitably results in injuries on the roadway.
We routinely represent individuals who are involved in bicycle injury cases. Recently, the personal injury lawyers at Domnitz & Domnitz, S.C. resolved a very difficult liability case for a teenager who was injured while crossing a busy street on his bicycle.
In this particular case, a teen was crossing a busy street in what the law deems an “implied crosswalk” despite there being no actual lines painted on the road. Wisconsin statute §340.01(10)(b) describes in detail the concept of the implied crosswalk. It is important for all drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians to understand that regardless of whether there are lines designating a crosswalk or not, the stretch of roadway in a straight line between two corners is a crosswalk.
Our client was crossing in a straight line from corner to corner and made it about 90% of the way across the road when the car struck the rear tire of his bike. Despite there being the implied crosswalk, there was no control for the car and our client had left a corner after waiting at a stop sign; again, a very difficult liability situation.
Prior to our involvement in the case, our client was ticketed for failure to stop at the stop sign. Through depositions we were able to determine that there was no witness who actually saw our client ride through the stop sign and he was adamant that he had stopped and looked both ways before crossing.
Our client suffered a fractured ankle and fractures to several toes in this bicycle v. automobile crash. Throughout the litigation the defendants made no offers to settle and would not agree to mediate the case. A jury trial seemed inevitable. However, as so often happens, as trial approached our phone rang. For the first time, the defendants were interested in seeing if a resolution could be reached without needing to try the case.
In the span of a couple years, this bicycle injury case went from one in which our client was blamed for causing the crash to the defendants paying tens of thousands of dollars to resolve the case before trial. It was crucial for our client to have an experience bicycle injury lawyer handling his case.