Got hit today @ Milwaukee&Elston

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Permalink Reply by Brendan Kevenides on October 14, 2009 at 9:23pm

Glad you weren't seriously hurt. Hopefully the driver's insurer won't give you a hard time. I am a personal injury lawyer. Feel free to call me if you want to discuss. My office number is 312.236.2522.

Brendan Kevenides

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Permalink Reply by dan brown on October 15, 2009 at 1:07pm

here is another (cool) fact that a lawyer informed me about (I got a settlement where a taxi hit me)
if you have car insurance (I did at the time) and are on a bike and are hit by a car (and the car
is the "responsible party" - which was the cab in my case...and the R.P has no insurance (my case),
**your** insurance will cover it under the _Uninsured_ portion of the policy. As a result of that : I
got a nice settlement that took away some of the "pain" (it took a year). the attorney took 33% off the top btw - but I didn't have to put up anything (retainer).

just FWIW.

Dan

Bailey Gene Newbrey said:

Insurance companies make money, the city makes money, & a bike shop (or craigslist solicitor) make money. All the while you get a bit banged up. Ain't life grand?

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Permalink Reply by dan brown on October 15, 2009 at 1:10pm

great point h3. I agree 100%.

this is exactlty why I always try to make eye contact whenever possible.

the helmet mounted headlight is good for this as you look them in the eye
and they see a bright light light. kind of hard to avoid / ignore.

DB

h3 said:

Hope you recover fully and prevail in the insurance mess.

This type of accident can happen simply because the driver has their head up their butt, but often it happenes when a driver is waiting to turn left in an intersection and counts the number of oncoming cars that have to clear, identify the "last" car after which they decide they can turn, and then attend to something else until the target car is about to clear. Human information processing is not quite up to the task of driving most of the time, and it's typical for a driver to only scan for one thing and tune out anything that doesn't fit the mold. People turn across large trucks all the time, or even drive right into the back or side of them, because they're literally only scanning for cars.
So as a cyclist you have to assume that you're invisible to an oncoming car that's waiting to turn across your path, especially when you're following one or more cars.

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