What to Do After a Bicycle Accident in Pennsylvania

I am Sean Quinlan, and I represent riders who were hit on Pennsylvania roads — on Philadelphia’s bike lanes and bridge approaches, on Pittsburgh’s river trails and the streets that connect them, on the shoulders of two-lane roads in Lancaster, Chester, and Bucks. The single most damaging myth in these cases is that a cyclist is a guest on the road. Pennsylvania law says otherwise, and the case is built on that.

Start with your rights, because the insurer will start somewhere else

75 Pa. C.S. § 3501 provides that a person riding a pedalcycle on a roadway has all of the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle. You were entitled to be there. Using the travel lane is not, by itself, negligence.

75 Pa. C.S. § 3505 governs riding position. It requires riding as near to the right side as practicable under the circumstances — and then lists exceptions that swallow the version of the rule adjusters like to quote. A rider may leave the right side to overtake, to prepare for a left turn, to avoid hazards including surface debris, drainage grates, opening car doors, and parked vehicles, and whenever the lane is too narrow to be shared safely with a passing car. That last exception is why taking the lane on a narrow street is the lawful and safe choice, not a violation.

75 Pa. C.S. § 3303(a)(3) is the rule that decides the largest share of these cases. A driver overtaking a bicycle must pass at a careful and prudent reduced speed and must allow at least four feet of clearance, and the statute expressly permits crossing the center line into the opposing lane to make that room when it is safe. That removes the excuse that there was nowhere to go.

Get medical care the same day

Ride-ending crashes produce injuries riders routinely underestimate in the first hours: clavicle and scapula fractures, wrist and elbow fractures, hip and pelvic injuries, and concussion. Report every symptom at the first visit, including headaches, confusion, and memory problems. A helmet that did its job does not mean there was no brain injury.

Preserve the bike, the helmet, and your gear

Do not repair the bicycle, do not throw out the helmet, and do not discard damaged clothing or shoes. The frame damage pattern, the fork alignment, the helmet’s crush signature, and the location of scuffs on the bike and the gear are physical evidence of the impact geometry — where the vehicle struck you and from what angle. Photograph everything before it is moved, and store it somewhere it will not be discarded by a well-meaning family member.

If you ride with a camera, download the file immediately and back it up in two places. Camera footage is the most persuasive evidence available in these cases and the easiest to lose.

Canvass for video before it overwrites

Storefronts, homes with doorbell cameras, transit buses, and municipal traffic cameras capture far more than people expect. Nearly all of it overwrites within days to a couple of weeks. A written preservation request delivered quickly is what keeps it alive. The same urgency applies to the striking vehicle’s event data recorder, which supplies speed, throttle, and braking in the seconds before impact and is destroyed when the car is repaired or salvaged.

Do not talk to the driver’s insurer

You are not required to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement, and doing so almost never helps. The questions are engineered to produce concessions about your lane position, your speed, your visibility, and whether you signaled. Decline politely, and route the call to your lawyer.

Find your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

You were not an occupant of a car, so there are no first-party medical benefits attached to the crash. Health insurance becomes the primary payer. What fills the gap is UM/UIM coverage, which in Pennsylvania follows the insured person, not the vehicle. A policy owned by you or by a resident relative in your household generally responds when you are struck while riding — including in a hit-and-run where the driver is never found. Collect every declarations page in the household. Where stacking was not waived, limits across multiple vehicles can combine.

On tort election: 75 Pa. C.S. § 1705(d)(3) provides that a person injured while occupying a motor vehicle that is not a private passenger motor vehicle is not bound by a limited tort election, and a bicycle is not a private passenger motor vehicle. Where there is no household policy, § 1705(b)(3) governs. This gets confirmed against the declarations pages in every file rather than taken from the adjuster.

Expect the fault fight, and win it with measurements

Under 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102, your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault and barred only above 50 percent. Every cyclist file opens with the same accusations: you were too far left, you ran the light, you were not visible, you were not wearing a helmet. None of those are answered well with argument. They are answered with a reconstruction that quantifies closing speed and available reaction time, sight-line photography taken from the driver’s actual eye position, signal-timing records, and the physical damage on the bike.

Helmet use deserves its own note. Pennsylvania requires helmets only for riders under 12 years old. Choosing not to wear one where the law permits it did not cause the driver to hit you, and it is at most a narrow medical causation argument about a specific head injury — not a defense to liability.

If the road itself was part of the problem

Storm grates aligned with the direction of travel, potholes at the edge line, failed bike-lane markings, and unrepaired trail surfaces come up often. Where a government entity is responsible, written notice is required within six months under 42 Pa. C.S. § 5522, immunity applies except within the exceptions in 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 8522 and 8542, and recovery is capped by § 8528(b) and § 8553(b). These claims have to be identified in the first weeks.

Deadlines

Two years from the date of the crash under 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524. Wrongful death and survival claims arise under 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 8301 and 8302. A municipal notice deadline, where one applies, runs at six months and controls everything.

See my Pennsylvania pedestrian and bicycle accident lawyer page for how these files are built, the comparison to a standard car accident claim for the coverage differences, and the Pittsburgh bicycle accident guide if you ride in Allegheny County.

Talk to me about your crash

If a driver hit you while you were riding, the video and the vehicle data are already on a countdown. Consultations are free and confidential, and there is no fee unless we recover. Request a free case review.