Bicycle Accidents Caused by Collisions with Cars and Buses

The attorneys at The Zinn Law Firm have represented a great number of clients who have been injured while riding their bicycles and colliding with cars or buses. It is imperative that your attorney handling your bicycle collision case understand the provisions of the Vehicle Code and how they apply to bicyclists. In our years of doing this work, we have represented bicyclists in many different types of collisions with motor vehicles such as buses and cars. In those years, however, we have singled out the three most common scenarios between bikes and cars/buses that lead to accidents and sometimes serious injury. They are:

• The “Right Hook”: This occurs when a bicycle is passing a car on the right, either in a shared lane or in a dedicated bike lane, and the car suddenly and usually without much warning turns right into the bicyclists, causing injury.
• Being “Doored”: This occurs when a person gets out of his car and opens the door without looking first into a passing bicyclist.
• Left Turning Car Runs into Bicyclist Going Straight: This occurs when a motorist turns left either at an uncontrolled intersection or a controlled intersection on a green light and runs into a bicyclist who was traveling straight and through the intersection.

The California Vehicle Code has hundreds of separate rules of the road, most of which were written with cars in mind. However, there is one section that provides that every provision in the code also applies to bicycles. California Vehicle Code (CVC) section 21200. Often this makes sense. But other times, the rules written for cars don’t apply as easily to bicycles, setting up conflicting interpretations of the law which a skilled bicycle-accident attorney must be ready to handle.

No law firm in the Bay Area is more familiar with the intricacies of the Vehicle Code and how it applies to the interactions between cars, buses and bicycles on our public roadways. The Zinn Firm’s expertise in bike accident law is so well-known in the community that the firm regularly participates in drafting changes to the California Vehicle Code that affect the rights of bicyclists statewide. For example, The Zinn firm helped write the law that created California’s new Class IV, protected bike lanes, also known as cycle tracks.