It is always a drag getting involved in a motor vehicle accident. Literally. An automobile, with all the built in protections to keep you safe and cozy from all the noise, smoke, and life threatening injuries. For Example the B-Pillar, which is the part of the automobile frame which your seat belt is usually attached to. This part of the car is a life saver from T-bone accidents and collision. See image. Now substitute the automobile with all its fine tuned standard protections against bodily injury and death with a pretty 2 wheeler. A motorcycle, yes that thing that buzzes next to you on the 10, 405, and my favorite the 2 freeway. The machine we have all wanted to ride or learn how to ride, but more one reason or many opted to save more than a pretty penny. With a motorcyclist, whom we are all afraid of injuring or potentially even worse.
I can honestly say that after years in the practice of representing motorcycle accident victims with massive traumatic and life changing injuries, I have more or less developed a sort of PTSD. Every time I hear the purring of the motorcycle’s engine in the back of my ear, I automatically remember 2 things. Do not even think about placing or answering a hands-free phone call of course and put down that country music. Post-Traumatic Stress you say? I say, my civil duty for the safety of my fellow man. Exactly. I feel as if I worry about these souls more than they. Whizzing, squeezing, cutting, splitting, and my favorite, all while stylishly popping a wheelie standing on the seat with one leg no hands or helmet, providing job security for the Highway Patrol. Oh, yes, slightly, the undiagnosed kind.
In Los Angeles, California, out of the approximate 4 million population about 2,000 Motorcycle death or injury occurred in just in 2014 alone. California Office of Highway Safety. Yes, we are talking about the City of Los Angeles, not the County of Los Angeles, which houses an approximate 10 million residence (2014). U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2011 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table B02001. American FactFinder. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
Stay safe my friends. You have all given us so much business in the past and we have fearlessly advocated for your causes and brought in the big settlement bucks. However, as I hear our attorneys time and time again pragmatically and unsuccessfully advise–“Maybe you keep off that thing for a while.”