Bicycle Accidents
A bicycle is a vehicle under Texas law and you have the same rights and duties as a driver. You are entitled to the lane where it is too narrow to share safely, and San Antonio requires motorists to give three feet of clearance when passing — six for a commercial vehicle. Your own auto policy may cover you even though you were on a bike.
Texas gives a person on a bicycle the rights and duties of any other vehicle operator. That is the foundation of the claim: you belonged on the road.
Cyclists riding slower than traffic generally keep right, but the statute carves out the situations that matter — passing, turning left, avoiding a hazard, and where the lane is too narrow for a car and a bicycle to travel safely side by side. Most urban lanes are too narrow.
San Antonio’s safe-passing ordinance requires a motorist to leave three feet when passing a cyclist, and six feet for a commercial vehicle. A pass closer than that is a violation, and violations are evidence.
The right hook: a driver overtakes and then turns right across the cyclist’s path. The dooring: a parked occupant opens a door into the lane. Both put the fault squarely on the motorist, and both are routinely blamed on the cyclist for being where they were entitled to be.
The rest are left crosses at intersections and drivers pulling out from driveways and side streets without looking for anything smaller than a car.
Physical evidence decides these: the position of the bicycle and the vehicle, the damage geometry, paint transfer, and where the debris landed.
Expect helmet use, dark clothing, no lights, and riding outside a bike lane to be raised. Texas has no adult helmet requirement, and comparative fault reduces rather than bars recovery below fifty-one percent.
Lighting is different. Texas requires a white front lamp and a rear reflector or lamp at night, and a genuine failure there can shift a real share of fault.
The strongest answer to the whole line of argument is the passing ordinance and the lane-position statute, applied to where the impact actually happened.
Cyclists are unprotected and the injuries run severe. The at-fault driver may carry the Texas minimum of $30,000.
Your own auto policy is the coverage people forget. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage and personal injury protection can apply when you are struck while cycling, and so can a resident family member’s policy in many cases. You do not need to have been in a car.
Where the driver left the scene, UM coverage is frequently the entire claim, and it carries prompt-reporting conditions.
Get medical attention and be assessed for head injury even if you were wearing a helmet.
Do not repair the bicycle. Its damage is evidence of the impact geometry, and so is your damaged gear.
Photograph the road, the lane widths, any bike lane markings, and where the vehicle and bicycle came to rest.
Notify your own auto insurer even though you were cycling. That opens UM/UIM and PIP.
Yes. Texas gives a person on a bicycle the rights and duties of any other vehicle operator.
No. A cyclist may leave the right-hand portion of the road to pass, to turn left, to avoid a hazard, or where the lane is too narrow to share safely.
Texas has no adult helmet requirement. It will be raised anyway, and comparative fault reduces rather than bars recovery below 51%.
Often yes. UM/UIM and personal injury protection can apply when you are struck while cycling, and sometimes a family member’s policy does too.
San Antonio’s ordinance requires three feet, and six feet for a commercial vehicle.
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