Bicycle Accident Settlement Calculator, from your losses, your share of fault and your state's rules.

A bicycle claim is valued the way any injury claim is: the losses, the pain and suffering, and your share of the fault. The calculator on this page runs the same engine the car, truck and motorcycle calculators run, because the law does not give cyclists a different formula. What changes is the ground the claim stands on, and for a cyclist that ground is uneven.

A traffic code sets rules for drivers, and each state decides how much of its code a cyclist carries: whether a bicycle is a "vehicle" at all, whether a cyclist has the rights and duties of a driver, and where a cyclist may ride. An insurance code sets rules for vehicles and the people in them, and each state decides whether its no-fault or personal injury protection rules say anything about someone who was not in one. Helmet rules and the rules on passing a cyclist and opening a car door sit in the same codes, and each can bear on who was at fault.

The cyclist-law panel below reads those codes state by state. It quotes each provision in its own words, names the copy of the law that was read and when, and says plainly where a point was not addressed in the provisions read or could not be established. The research behind it read each state's code itself, not summaries of it, and every passage quoted was checked against the document again for this page. Where a code could not be opened, the panel says so rather than guessing: Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Utah show no cyclist law here, because their codes could be reached only as search results or not at all.

Two things the page will not do. It will not tell you a helmet reduces your claim by some amount, because no statute read for it states one. And it will not tell you whose insurance pays in your state in its own words; where a statute says, the panel quotes the statute.

Some codes define a bicycle as a vehicle outright. Others define a vehicle so that a device moved by human power is left out, and then give a person riding a bicycle the rights and duties of a driver by a separate section. The two approaches can give different answers when a rule is written for "vehicles" or for "motor vehicles".

The codes of 37 jurisdictions quoted on this page give a person riding a bicycle on the roadway the rights of a driver, or all of the rights and duties applicable to one, with the exceptions each section sets out, which the panel quotes. That is the starting point for fault: a cyclist is expected to follow the rules of the road, and a driver is expected to treat a cyclist as traffic.

Codes then add rules only a cyclist has. Of the jurisdictions whose codes are quoted on this page, 33 have a rule to ride as near the right side of the roadway as practicable, with exceptions the statute lists, such as to pass, to turn left, to avoid a hazard or a parked car, or where the lane is too narrow to share. A rule on riding two or more abreast is quoted for 36 of them, and a provision that mentions the shoulder of the road for thirteen.

Where a statute speaks to a bike lane, it is quoted for California, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and West Virginia. Where a statute speaks to a sidewalk, it is quoted for seventeen jurisdictions, and those rules take different forms: a ban in a business district, a local option, a duty to yield to pedestrians, or the rights of a pedestrian while on the sidewalk. A city ordinance can add to all of it, and local rules were not surveyed for this page.

Helmet rules for cyclists are written for particular riders. Of the provisions read for this page, the panel quotes a helmet rule for 23 jurisdictions: nineteen set one for riders and passengers of an ordinary bicycle below an age the statute sets, and four set one only for an electric bicycle or its fastest class. The ages are not the same everywhere, and some rules bind the parent rather than the child. For 21 jurisdictions, no helmet rule was found in the provisions read, which is not a finding that none exists. Local helmet rules were not surveyed.

The second question is the one that matters in a lawsuit. A statute in fifteen jurisdictions speaks to helmet non-use or a helmet violation in a civil case: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia. They do not say the same thing: some speak to a violation of the helmet rule itself, some to evidence at trial, some to negligence or contributory negligence, and one keeps its state's comparative negligence statutes in play while saying a citation is not prima facie evidence of negligence. The panel quotes each in its own words, because the differences are the point.

Everywhere else, the helmet sections read contain no rule about civil cases, and no court decisions were read for this page. That is what the panel says for those states, and it says nothing more. It is not a finding either way. Whether the other side may argue that a helmet would have prevented or lessened an injury is a question of that state's law and of the medical evidence in the case, and it is exactly the question to put to a lawyer there.

So the calculator offers no helmet setting and subtracts nothing for a missing helmet. A reduction built into an estimate would read as a rule of law when it is a guess.

A passing rule tells a driver how to overtake a cyclist. Codes in 34 jurisdictions quoted on this page set a distance in feet: three feet appears in 29 of them and four feet in five. Others require a "safe distance" without a number. The panel quotes each rule as written, with whatever conditions and exceptions it sets.

A dooring rule tells anyone in a parked vehicle when a door may be opened. Codes in 24 jurisdictions quoted on this page have one, and in 21 of them the rule is that no one may open a door on the side of moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so.

Neither rule decides a claim on its own. What a rule does is set the standard the driver or passenger is measured against. If a driver passed closer than the statute allows, or a passenger opened a door into a cyclist's path, that bears on fault, and the claim is then valued the same way as any other. Where the panel says no passing or dooring rule was located, it means only that the provisions read did not contain one.

No-fault and personal injury protection statutes set out benefits for early medical bills and lost wages that do not turn on who caused the crash. A cyclist raises a question those statutes answer differently: is a person on a bicycle a pedestrian, a non-occupant, or neither? Some statutes name the security that answers for a person who was not in a vehicle. Some define a pedestrian to include a cyclist, and some leave the point open.

The panel quotes what the provisions read for this page say for 22 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. For 23 others, no such provision was located for this page, which is not a finding that none exists. New Jersey's panel quotes its Supreme Court's 2024 decision on a low-speed electric scooter and says what that decision did not decide about a pedal bicycle.

Where a state limits some claims for pain and suffering after a motor-vehicle crash, the result of the calculator on this page prints a line beside the figure. For a cyclist it says whether a record read for this page speaks to someone who was not using a motor vehicle, and where none does, that whether the limit reaches a cyclist was not established. The figure itself does not change.

Beyond that first layer, a claim for the driver's fault is made against the driver, and what can actually be collected depends on the coverage the driver carried and any coverage you bought yourself. A health plan that pays your bills first may seek repayment from a settlement. None of those is a limit on what the claim is worth, and the calculator applies no insurance ceiling.

Some statutes define an electric bicycle by its working pedals, the power of its motor and the speed at which the motor stops helping, and split it into classes: of the codes quoted on this page, an e-bike or helmet provision names a class by number in 21 jurisdictions. The panel quotes each definition, so what a class means in your state is in its own words. Codes in fourteen jurisdictions quoted on this page write a rule for class 3 by name, such as a minimum age or a helmet for everyone on board.

Other statutes quoted on this page put a motor-assisted bicycle in a category like "motorized bicycle", "moped" or "motor-driven cycle", some with licensing or registration rules. The panel quotes an e-bike provision for 42 jurisdictions, in whichever of those forms the state uses.

Why it matters to a claim: rules written for a motor vehicle, including insurance rules and some deadline rules, may reach a bike that counts as one and not a bike that counts as a bicycle. If you were on an electric bicycle, keep a record of its make, model and class label, and tell a lawyer which it was.

Across the 51 jurisdictions in our data, the ordinary personal-injury deadline runs from 1 to 6 years, with 25 using 2 years. The calculator shows the period for the state you pick, and the cyclist-law panel prints it with the provision it is cited to.

In Colorado, Hawaii and Kentucky, the state also has a separate time limit written for motor-vehicle claims, and none of those limits is written for cyclists, so this page reads each state's own texts to decide what a cyclist is shown. In Colorado and Hawaii, the separate limit's own text reaches a cyclist's claim where a car or other motor vehicle was involved, and a crash that involved no motor vehicle runs on the ordinary period, so a cyclist is shown the earlier of the two as the earliest the deadline can fall. In Kentucky, no court decision on whether the separate limit reaches a cyclist was read for this page, so a cyclist is shown the ordinary period as the earliest the deadline can fall. Work inside it, and ask a lawyer there whether the longer one can apply.

In Tennessee, the period shown is the earliest the deadline can fall, not necessarily the deadline itself, because the statute gives a longer period where conditions it sets out are met; the panel quotes that provision.

What each of those states' note says, as the calculator and the panel print it for a cyclist:

Keep the helmet, even if it looks undamaged. Its marks can show where your head struck. Keep the clothing, gloves, shoes and any lights, computer or camera, unwashed and unrepaired, in a bag with the date. Keep the bike as it is: do not have it repaired or thrown away until it has been photographed from every side, and ideally until a lawyer says it can go.

Photograph the scene if you can return to it: the lane markings, any bike lane, parked cars, the sight lines at the corner, skid marks and debris, and the signs. If a camera on your bike or helmet recorded the crash, copy the footage somewhere else before the device overwrites it. Ask nearby shops and homes about their cameras quickly, before their footage is recorded over.

Write down what you remember while it is fresh, including where you were riding, your speed, your lights and what the driver did. Get the names of witnesses and the police report number. Keep every medical record and bill, and a record of each payment an insurer or health plan made on them, because a plan that paid may seek repayment from a settlement.