Although they are not the most frequent crashes on New Mexico’s roads, bicycle accidents frequently leave their victims with serious injuries. Bicyclists are highly vulnerable road users, and they should be entitled to seek compensation for their losses if they suffer injuries as a result of another driver’s carelessness.
Determining who was responsible for a bicycle collision can be difficult, though. Here, our Albuquerque automobile accident attorneys will go over how these collisions take place and how people can go about identifying who is at fault for these occurrences. Check out this website to know more!
Fault Is Not Automatic; Drivers of Vehicles and Cyclists Both Have Rights
According to information published by the New Mexico Department of Transportation, there were 374 bicycle accidents overall in the state during the most recent year of data. Only 36 out of the 374 collisions resulted in the bicyclist walking away uninjured.
Most people are unaware that drivers and bikers have equal rights on the road. It is clear from New Mexico’s legal framework that anyone using a bicycle should have the same freedoms and be subject to the same obligations as drivers of motor vehicles.
Finding the Offender Requires Gathering Evidence
Determining who is at fault in a bicycle accident in New Mexico can be difficult. Finding out who caused the crash will need performing a thorough investigation into the occurrence and gathering numerous forms of evidence, just like it would with any other kind of automobile accident. Following a bicycle collision, the following information can be acquired as evidence to determine who is at fault:
- Any statements made by crash witnesses.
- After the accident, a photo was taken.
- Observation footage from adjacent cameras.
- the accident or police report.
- data on a mobile smartphone.
- Black box data from the vehicle.
When a bicycle crash occurs, sometimes it is very obvious who is to blame. As an illustration, it would be pretty easy to identify the responsible party if a driver of a car was seen on camera running a stop sign before striking a bicycle that had the right of way. But in these circumstances, the evidence isn’t often so obvious. It may be required for the parties to cooperate with accident reconstruction specialists who can create 3D reconstructions of what probably happened using the evidence that is now available as well as various scientific and mathematical methods.
