California E-Bike Accident Attorney

What To Do After an E-Bike Crash

Video Transcript:

Claude Wyle: 

Parents and people who buy these e-bikes for themselves are facing greater danger than they ever have before on a regular bicycle.

Tom Mustin: 

E-bike ridership has grown in San Francisco and across the nation. On today's Ask The Lawyer, we're talking to California Attorney Claude Wyle about where these bikes fit into the legal stratosphere, particularly when it comes to insurance and liabilities. Claude, thanks for joining us again.

Claude Wyle: 

I am so glad you guys asked me because I am an avid e-bike rider. I ride regular bicycles too and motorcycles, but lately for the last few years, I've been on my e-bike more than any of the others.

Tom Mustin: 

Well, that's why we wanted to talk to you. So just for the people watching, how are e-bikes different from regular bikes or motorcycles?

Claude Wyle: 

Well, they're different, in many ways, they're different from each other as much as they're different for motorcycles or regular bicycles. But the concept of an electric bike is a bike that either is assisted through a battery motor or that rides completely through the use of a battery motor kinda like an electrical motorcycle. But it's not really a motorcycle, it's somewhat confusing. California, I don't think has really figured out what it's gonna do about electric bikes on the road, and the reason I wanted to talk to you guys today is because I think parents and people who buy these e-bikes for themselves are facing greater danger than they ever have before on a regular bicycle.

Tom Mustin: 

Wow, that's pretty scary. But I wanna ask you, are the laws for e-bikes the same as what we see for bicycles? Or are they closer to what we see for motorcycles?

Claude Wyle: 

They're closer than what we see for bicycles, and in California, a bicycle is considered to be a vehicle that's just like a motorcycle or a bicycle. A bicycle is considered to be a vehicle, an electric bike is also considered to be a bicycle, but it can go a lot faster. So we only have helmet laws in California for minors, so when you're an adult, you don't have to wear a helmet on a bicycle, and you certainly don't have to wear one even on an electric bicycle. Which I think is really not a smart thing to do, electric bicycles go much faster, so they can get you in trouble a lot faster. Car riders... Car drivers rather, they see a bicycle coming, they don't think you're gonna be approaching at 20, 25, 30 miles an hour. So they might enter an intersection and totally cut you off. E-bikes are by nature of having that motor that much heavier, and when they're that much heavier, they're that much harder to stop, they take longer to stop, unless like on my bike, they have gigantic breaks. So they go faster, they're harder to stop. You violate the expectancy of the other drivers, so basically they are more dangerous to ride, however, I still love them, and I think if you ride them safely they're just a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Claude Wyle: 

Because to me, there have been many times during the course of my life where I just didn't feel like climbing the mountain behind my house. And with an electric motor to help you out, you can still get a great workout. You get less injuries from your riding, you don't get a sore, you can go out the next day and ride again. There's wonderful things, for health, electric bikes are fantastic for getting to work, it's one less car, and I agree with it, but people have to be more careful.

Tom Mustin: 

Right, exactly. And kind of along the same lines, if you rent an e-bike from a company, say Lyft for example, and it involved in an accident, are you insured then automatically?

Claude Wyle: 

I don't think you're insured, I don't think they afford you any medical coverage, I don't think they afford you even liability coverage, that's up to you on your own what kind of coverage you have that you've bought through your home owners, through your auto policy. Now, one big difference between motorcycles and e-bikes, is if you have a motorcycle, you need motorcycle insurance for liability, but also if somebody hits you on the motorcycle, if you wanna have uninsured or under-insured coverage, in other words, the other person doesn't have adequate coverage to pay you when they've hurt you, if you wanna have uninsured under-insured coverage or hit and run coverage, you've got to buy motorcycle insurance. With a bicycle, a regular bicycle, all you have to have is your auto insurance policy and that'll cover you as you ride your bicycle down the street. So there's this thing about e-bikes are kind of in the middle. What kind of e-bike is it? Is it the kind with just a throttle? Or do you have to pedal? Is it really a bicycle with a little bit of electric assist, or is it something you can throttle up to 40 miles an hour, like some of my friends have.

Claude Wyle: 

I see 13-year-olds in our hometown riding through intersections, bombing through stop signs, they've never been trained on the rules of the road, they don't... They're not drivers who are now on a motorcycle, they don't have to pass any kind of course, they don't have to go through any special training. It's just like they hopped on their bicycle, except they're going a lot faster and they love it. And they don't seem to be obeying all the rules, so I think e-bike riders should have extra training, I think e-bike riders should all be required to wear a helmet, and I think each and every e-bike rider had better... Truly appreciate the fact that they can get hit even easier by a car, because cars just don't expect them to be there that fast.

Tom Mustin: 

And talking about the importance of helmets, do you know if the e-bike companies offer helmets to people who rent their bikes?

Claude Wyle: 

I think some do and some don't. If you go down in front of my office right now, there's a whole bunch of e-bikes lined up and they're all connected to chargers, but I don't see helmets on all those bikes, and I don't see helmets on all those chargers that you could just grab. So that leaves it up to the rider to grab their own helmet, and a lot of people are not gonna do that. And if a bike can go faster, isn't that more dangerous than just a regular pedal bicycle? I think you should wear a helmet anyway on a pedal bicycle, but if you can go even faster, shouldn't you really wear a helmet? And I think you should have a helmet, I've got... In my garage, I've got six helmets, if anybody gets on the back of a bike, if anybody borrows my extra bike, I've just got helmets for everyone.

Claude Wyle: 

I'm a firm believer in safety gear, because it's helped me a lot, especially since I do a lot of mountain biking, and when you mountain bike, you can crash. So all my friends and I wear a lot of safety gear, including the latest greatest helmets and shin guards and elbow guards and great gloves and body guards. But that's especially when you're off road, if you fall down and hit a tree, you wanna be padded. But is that any more dangerous than riding your bike out there with traffic in San Francisco? I don't know, I don't think so.

Tom Mustin: 

I don't know. So like you said, err on the side of caution, it's a good thing. So what if, God forbid, you are involved in an accident, either as a rider on a bike or you're driving a car and you hit someone on a bike what's the first step that you should do after this happens?

Claude Wyle: 

Well, if you're involved in any kind of accident where somebody else is at fault, you should definitely call a lawyer who knows what they're doing about bicycles, motorcycles, car accidents, pedestrians, if that's how you're hurt, or if you end up hurting a pedestrian, you better figure out whether your car insurance covers you on an electric bike. Some insurance companies now are trying not to cover e-bikes for theft. They don't wanna pay for these expensive bikes that gets stolen. Which doesn't make sense, it's still a bicycle, but some insurance carriers are saying, "No, there's a maximum that we'll pay or we won't pay. And you need to have a special policy for your electric bike." They don't tell you this in advance, they only tell you you didn't have it after the fact. So a lot of this law and a lot of the insurance law and the insurance practices is in transition right now, and it's been a few years since electric bikes got more and more popular, and in Europe, they're popular like crazy. I don't know what their laws are over there, but I think electric bikes are just being treated like bicycles. So in my book, if you have an auto policy that covers you for riding your bicycle, your auto policy should also cover you for riding your electric bicycle, especially if your carrier, your insurance company, has not sent you any correspondence telling you that they're not gonna cover yo. They should know by now.

Claude Wyle: 

But I'm sure it's gonna be up for argument with people like me, so the first thing you should do is get a hold of a lawyer to try and figure out what your rights are. Now, I just had a case the other day, this young man was at UC Berkeley and he was riding his bike in the bike path, and a guy on an electric scooter came and cut him off so sharply that my client grabbed his brakes and flew over the scooter rider, landing on the pavement and getting horribly hurt. Well, now what do you do? He's rented the e-bike, you can't catch the scooter rider, he took off. Where is the avenue of recovery there? These are very difficult insurance questions and liability questions. And frankly, we haven't figured it out yet. This guy just called me. So this is all to be decided, and I think you guys should check in with me again in a couple of months after I try to figure a lot of this out. Now I have been trying to figure this out since 2020, when e-bikes took off, no pun intended, but I've wanted to know the liability rules, the insurance rules, and even my own agent can't tell me.

Tom Mustin: 

Wow. Well, definitely to be continued. But one last question here Claude, what if someone says, "Okay, what you're saying makes a lot of sense, but I don't wanna pay for an attorney. I can handle the claim on my own." What do you say to those folks?

Claude Wyle: 

Well, you can lose the claim on your own. When you handle an injury attorney... I'm sorry, when you retain an injury attorney, that's done on a contingency fee, that means if we don't get some money for you, we don't get paid. It's a success fee. We advance our time, we advance our money, and if we are successful and causing money to change hands, we get a percentage. If we're not successful, you don't have to pay us. So given the example of that kid in Berkeley, if I can't get some sort of recovery for him, he's not gonna owe me any money, he doesn't have to pay me anything up front, he doesn't have to pay for costs. So that's the contingency fee, and it's really every person's key to the courthouse. Big corporations, they can afford to buy lawyers all day long, but for regular people to be able to get to the courthouse and have representation, they need the contingency fee.

Tom Mustin: 

Right, it sounds like a win-win. Well, we will definitely continue this conversation in the near future, Claude. Thanks so much for your time and your expertise. We really appreciate it.

Claude Wyle: 

Great to see you guys. And happy holidays. Any time you have any questions about anything, especially involving two wheels, we're here for you.

Tom Mustin: 

We got you on speed dial. Alright, thanks Claude. And that's gonna do it for this episode of Ask The Lawyer, my guest has been Claude Wyle. If you wanna ask Claude about your situation, call the number you see on the screen. Thanks for watching. I'm Tom Mustin, for Ask The Lawyers.

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