Texas Bicycle Accident Lawyer

Texas Law Is on the Cyclist's Side — Whatever Drivers Believe

Under the Texas Transportation Code, a bicycle is a vehicle and its rider holds a vehicle operator's rights: full use of the lane where conditions require it, with the ride-right requirement dissolving whenever the lane is too narrow to share safely, hazards line the edge, or the rider is preparing to turn. Riders may travel two abreast in a single lane, must use lights and reflectors at night, and signal turns — duties we document our clients met. Many Texas cities layer on safe-passing ordinances requiring drivers to give cyclists three to six feet of clearance, and every driver everywhere owes the baseline duties that decide these cases: lookout, control, and yielding where required. The gap between what the law says and what drivers believe — that bikes belong on sidewalks, that riders “came out of nowhere” — is where our evidence work lives.

How Drivers Hit Cyclists: The Patterns We Litigate

Cycling collisions repeat with grim consistency. The right hook: a driver passes a cyclist and turns right across their path. The left cross: an oncoming driver turns left through a rider they looked past. The dooring: a parked occupant opens into the bike lane — negligence on its face. The overtaking strike: passing too close or drifting into the shoulder, the collision safe-passing ordinances exist to prevent. The pull-out: drivers leaving driveways and stop signs who scanned for cars and never registered the bike. Add distracted driving to every pattern and impairment to the worst of them. Each has a proof signature — impact geometry, damage locations, road position — and each collapses the “cyclist came out of nowhere” defense when reconstruction puts the rider exactly where the law entitled them to be, visible for the seconds an attentive driver needed.

Cyclist Injuries: Unprotected Bodies, Serious Cases

A rider takes vehicle force with a helmet and jersey: traumatic brain injuries even with helmets — which reduce but cannot eliminate them; clavicle, wrist, and shoulder fractures from instinctive bracing; road rash that is, medically, a burn-type injury with grafting and permanent scarring at its severe end; facial and dental trauma; spinal injuries; and internal injuries from handlebar and vehicle impact. Our cycling cases run the full injury-practice playbook — imaging and specialists, disfigurement damages for scarring, impairment evidence for athletes whose sport the crash took — and our staff nurse keeps treatment connected while the case builds. The bike matters too: high-end bicycles are significant property losses, documented and claimed alongside the injury.

Beating the Anti-Cyclist Playbook

Insurers defend cycling claims with cultural bias as much as law: he should have been on the sidewalk (often illegal locally, and more dangerous); she wasn't wearing a helmet (Texas has no statewide adult helmet law, and helmet non-use doesn't create driver negligence); he was in the middle of the lane (where the law often puts him); dark clothing, no lights (we verify equipment and lighting — and headlights and lookout duties exist precisely for dark). Comparative fault applies as everywhere — recovery survives unless the rider exceeds 50% responsibility — and juror bias is answered in voir dire and by evidence that makes the driver's inattention undeniable: phone records, camera footage, reconstruction, and the safe-passing ordinance the driver never heard of but violated anyway.

Why Cyclists Choose McKay Law

Because we treat riders as what Texas law says they are — full road users hit by negligent drivers — and we build their cases with the same rigor as any vehicle collision: Rapid Response scene work, camera canvasses before footage loops, reconstruction where geometry decides fault, and full coverage mapping including the UM/UIM and PIP protections that cover cyclists struck by uninsured and hit-and-run drivers. The standard holds throughout: free consultation 24/7, English and Spanish, all costs advanced, no fee unless we win. If a driver put you on the pavement, the insurer is already drafting the blame. Call (903) INJURED and let's draft the answer.

Where Texans Ride — and Where Drivers Hit Them

Our cycling docket maps the state's riding: commuter corridors and trail-road crossings in Dallas, where bike infrastructure starts and stops without warning; the farm-to-market training routes of East Texas — the low-traffic roads out of Sulphur Springs, Tyler, and Greenville that cyclists prize and pickup mirrors menace; college-town riding in Commerce and Tyler; and the group rides whose pacelines meet impatient overtakers on two-lane blacktop. Rural cases carry their own physics — higher closing speeds, no shoulders, long EMS response times that worsen outcomes — and their own evidence work: fewer cameras, more reconstruction, and witness canvasses along routes where everyone knows the road. Group-ride crashes add multiple victims and coordinated claims against shared limits. Wherever you ride, the first call after the ambulance should establish the scene while it exists: (903) INJURED answers weekends, because that's when Texas rides.

Insurance for Cyclists: The Coverage Most Riders Don't Know They Have

Cyclists struck by drivers are covered by more than the driver's policy — and the difference decides serious cases. The at-fault driver's liability coverage pays first; when it's minimal or absent, your own auto policy's uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage applies to you as a cyclist — no car involvement required — as does a resident family member's policy if you carry none; PIP and MedPay coverage pays medical bills regardless of fault; hit-and-run strikes are UM claims by definition once reported; and homeowner's or specialty cycling policies may cover high-value bike losses. Texas insurers cannot raise rates for UM/UIM claims — using coverage you paid for is a contract right, not a favor. Serious cycling injuries against minimum-limits drivers are exactly where this mapping earns its keep, and it's standard in every case we take.

After the Crash: The Cyclist's Evidence Checklist

What survives the first week decides these cases. Call 911 and get the crash report started — riders waved off with “you seem okay” lose the official record fault fights need. Photograph everything before it moves: bike position, vehicle position, damage to both, the roadway, and your injuries. Preserve the bike unrepaired — impact damage is reconstruction evidence — along with your helmet, cracked or not, and the clothes and lights you wore; they answer the visibility arguments before they're made. Pull your ride data: GPS files from cycling computers and phone apps fix your speed, position, and lights-on status with timestamped precision insurers can't argue with. Canvass for cameras — doorbells, businesses, dashcams in the cars that stopped. Get evaluated the same day and report every symptom region. Then route the driver's insurer to us: (903) INJURED, before the recorded-statement call finds you.

Serving Texas Cyclists Statewide

From Sulphur Springs, Dallas, Tyler, Greenville, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso, McKay Law represents riders across every kind of Texas cycling — commuters on metro corridors, roadies on the FM training loops of Hopkins and Hunt Counties, gravel riders on the county roads, and kids on neighborhood streets, whose cases carry children's protections and our most careful handling. Free consultations 24/7 in English and Spanish at (903) INJURED, all costs advanced, no fee unless we win — and a firm that knows the difference between a rider who “came out of nowhere” and a driver who never looked.

Cycling claims also carry a community dimension we take seriously: every case that makes an inattentive driver's insurer pay full value makes the roads marginally safer for the next rider, and documented dangerous corridors become evidence in the infrastructure conversations Texas cycling advocates carry on. Your claim is yours — but its accountability ripples outward, and we're proud to be part of that.

If you ride, one preparation costs nothing now and everything later: confirm your auto policy carries meaningful UM/UIM and PIP coverage today, because as a cyclist those coverages are your safety net against the underinsured drivers who cause the worst crashes. And if the crash already happened — the review is free, the number is (903) INJURED, and the evidence clock is running.

Ride safe, ride visible, and know your rights before you need them — because Texas roads belong to you too, and this firm will keep saying so for as long as drivers need reminding.

The next group ride, the next commute, the next Saturday century — that's what recovery is for, and what a properly built claim protects.

Your Questions, Answered