Rogillio - 2008-06-22 12:41 PM
Thanks Richard. This is good to know. I don't know if we have 'uninsured motorist' or not but we have pretty good insurance (USAA) so I bet we have this too. Did your wife get anything for 'pain and suffereing'? I'm not looking to sue anyone and am not looking at this like a lottery ticket but it would be nice to get few bucks to mabye get some better aerobars or something.
~Mike
Mike - yes, she did get some for pain and suffering, but it took a while to get that.
Our insurance claim was done in two parts. First was the bike, and second was the injury. The bike got taken care of pretty quickly, within a month or so, because it was so straightforward. That was the part where the LBS came into play, and we came out with a little bit extra there without us really trying, as I explained in the post.
Injury was second, and in our case it took a while because of the extent of her injuries. The medical bills did get paid by insurance as they came in, so that was no problem. It was really the "pain and suffering" part you referenced that took a while. The biggest reason for that was that they wanted to see how well her broken elbow rehabilitated and how much scarring she'd have on her elbow and her leg (where the car bumper made contact). I was concerned about this part, because the medical bills alone took all of the driver's insurance coverage, and ours had picked up paying by the "pain and suffering" part. Thankfully in the end her elbow healed totally with much PT. She did wind up with a nasty scar on her leg, so in the end they offered her roughly $15k to cover the pain, scars, etc.
We also had no desire to sue or look at it like a "lottery ticket". In our case, my wife thought she and the lady were making eye contact. Instead, what the lady saw was a kid on a bicycle who was riding down the middle of the road. It turned out my wife was almost directly in the line of sight between the lady and the kid. The driver literally looked right through my wife, and when the kid turned, the lady pulled out - right into the side of my wife. The driver admitted fault from the beginning, and even went to the hospital so she could be there with me in case I didn't have any family or friends when I got there. She was devastated. I have to say that while it was a mistake on her part, it wasn't like she was driving aggressively, or failed to stop at the sign, or was fiddling with something she shouldn't have been. It was a simple mistake, so it was impossible to be angry with her.
Having said all that, I would think "pain and suffering" is a legitimate claim for your type of accident. Given the pictures you showed, I'd expect a nice set of aerobars to be well within what you should request and expect.
Edited by Wolfgate 2008-06-22 12:40 PM