Awful news...hang in there.

I'm a lawyer (in California), so wanted to put in my 2 cents.

What someone said above is incorrect, if you end up having to file suit, you WILL file suit against the driver of the car, not his insurer. His insurer is obligated to defend and indemnify him for liability incurred by this accident. If the driver has no insurance, he is personally liable for the damages.

You should have no problem getting what's due you, given the fact that the driver was issued a citation. You would be entitled to:

-replacement value of bike
-lost wages
-medical costs
-compensation for other monetary damages caused by accident
-pain and suffering (as someone said above, usually calculated by multiplying all the damages above by some number, 3-5 in California. So if you have $5000 of lost wages/medical costs, your compensation for pain and suffering should be $15,000-$25,000. This number can vary greatly from case-to-case and state-to-state)

A personal injury attorney will always work on a contingency basis, for a portion of the amount you recover from the insurance company. So if you get your award before going to trial, he/she gets 25%, after trial 30%, something like that.


Best of luck with it all.

-Amy