Bicycle Accidents

Our Firm Specializes in Representing Bicyclists Injured in Bicycle Accidents

The Zinn Law Firm has a wide range of experience handling different types of personal injury and medical malpractice lawsuits. However, one of our firm’s primary specialties is representing bicyclists who have been injured in bicycle accidents. In fact, over 50% of the firm’s active cases involve representing injured bicyclists. Few Bay Area personal injury law firms can make that claim.

The Zinn Firm Has Resolved Some of the Largest Bicycle Accident Cases in California

In a high profile case against the City of Oakland, The Zinn Law Firm settled a defective roadway case for $3.25 million. The case arose from a pot-hole-riddled roadway that caused severe injuries to our client when she hit a deep pot hole and fell face first onto the roadway. The firm has also settled a case for $2.5 million on behalf of an Oakland bicyclist who was run over by an AC Transit bus that was taking a left turn at a dangerous speed. Both of these cases were covered extensively in the local media. Because of The Zinn Law Firm’s long and proven track record of obtaining fair, substantial settlements and trail verdicts for our clients injured in bicycle accidents and our larger role in the community advocating for better and safer bicycle access, The Zinn Law Firm is widely recognized as the preeminent law firm in the Bay Area specializing in bicycle accident cases.

These are two of many other serious-injury bicycle accident cases The Zinn Law Firm has resolved for our clients. Our work in many of these cases has not only resulted in important financial recoveries for our clients, but also in important safety changes by the parties responsible for causing them. For example, as a result of the Mountain Boulevard pothold case, the city of Oakland has revamped its entire budgeting and maintanance program for repairing and resurfacing damaged roadways that are well traveled by bicylists. As a result of the AC Transit case, the agency fired the bus driver involved in the accident and contributed to AC Transit forming a new high level safety committee designed to prevent traffic accidents like this one from occuring in the future. Please see our other examples of our results in resolving bicycle accident cases in our clients’ favor.

The Types of Bicycle Accident Cases We Handle

There are essentially three different kinds of bicycle accident cases where we can help:

1. When a bicyclist collides with a car, another bicyclist, or in rare cases, a pedestrian;
2. When a bicyclist is injured by a dangerous roadway condition, such as a pothole, bump, or rut in the road; or
3. When a defective bicycle part or component fails, causing injury.

From our extensive experience handling each type of these bicycle accident cases, we know each one can involve specific issues to which your attorney needs to pay attention to obtain a fair recovery for you. Please read the links we provide for each to learn more.

If You Need a Bicycle Accident Attorney, Hire One Who Actually Rides!

There are numerous reasons that The Zinn Law Firm has been chosen by so many seriously-injured bicyclists to handle their bicycle accident cases, including our client injured on Mountain Boulevard. First, attorney Carter Zinn is an avid cyclist himself. There are other lawyers in the Bay Area who present themselves as bicycle accident attorneys. But we are not aware of any practice in which both primary attorneys actually ride bicycles as regularly and extensively as the attorneys in this firm. In fact, The Zinn Law Firm was started with proceeds that Mr. Zinn earned from a modest settlement he obtained on his own behalf in a bicycle accident in which he himself was injured by a negligent driver!

Attorney Carter Zinn has been an avid road rider since the 1990s. He commutes to our San Francisco office from Mill Valley three days a week on his bicycle and rides the roads of Marin County on the weekends, averaging around 150 miles per week. He has participated in numerous Century bike rides and other organized endurance rides, including the Tour of the Unknown Coast, and the Mammoth Fall Century rides.

The Zinn Law Attorneys Are Involved in Bicycle Advocacy in Your Community Aside From Their Legal Work

We are one of the only law firms who appear as bicycle-friendly attorneys on the websites of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the Marin Bicycle Coalition, and Bike East Bay (formerly the East Bay Bicycle Coalition). We have earned this distinction because these organizations have seen how we protect their members when they get into accidents, and they have seen our advocacy on behalf of bicyclists outside of the litigation realm. Because of his long support and intimate knowledge of bicycle law and bicycle safety issues, Carter Zinn was appointed to the Mill Valley Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission by the Mill Valley City Council in 2013. He has been actively involved in all work of the commission in recent years, and he served as the Committee’s chairman from 2015 to 2017. Please read on to learn of our involvement with local bicycle coalitions and our other work outside of the courthouse to advocate for greater bicycle access and safety throughout the Bay Area.