Can You Get PTSD From A Motorcycle Accident?

Any motor vehicle collision can be a traumatic event, especially for those injured in motorcycle accidents. Can you get PTSD from a motorcycle accident? You definitely can, and you deserve compensation if this applies to you. The Mike Morse Law Firm can help.

What Is PTSD?

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that can develop after a person experiences or witnesses a traumatic event. The event might be shocking, scary, dangerous, distressing or terrifying — or all of the above.

While it’s natural to feel fear or have emotional reactions to these events as they happen and shortly afterward, some people have trouble recovering from the trauma. They may experience symptoms such as:

• Physical stress
• Having flashbacks or reliving the original event, often with accompanying physical symptoms like sweating, shaking or rapid heartbeat
• Experiencing disturbing thoughts, dreams or memories
• Irritability, anger or restlessness
• Trouble sleeping, concentrating and remaining calm

There are many more symptoms, including those that affect moods, cognition, routine behaviors and reactions. When these symptoms persist longer than a month, that person may have PTSD.

Often, a sound, smell or other sensory input triggers an adverse reaction in people with PTSD. Those with PTSD caused by a motorcycle accident may become afraid of riding, be uncomfortable in traffic or lose interest in what was once an enjoyable pastime.

Mental health care professionals can help patients with PTSD learn to cope, but it can be a life-long struggle. Bikers are typically passionate about riding, and losing the ability to enjoy it is a tremendous change of lifestyle.

Is PTSD Common After Motorcycle Accidents?

Some riders involved in motorcycle accidents experience PTSD, while others don’t. There’s no determining factor that indicates whether you will.

Physical Injuries

In car crashes, drivers and passengers have some degree of protection provided by their vehicle’s body, seatbelts and airbags. Although bikers should use helmets and often wear leathers or other types of protective clothing, these preventative measures don’t do much to mitigate impact forces in a collision.

The injuries sustained in motorcycle accidents are often severe. Burns, road rash, broken bones, head and traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage and severe bruising are common.

The severity of these injuries, the pain that accompanies them and a prolonged recovery period can lead to PTSD.

Mental and Emotional Trauma

In many motorcycle accidents, riders can see that cars or other vehicles are about to hit them. Being unable to avoid a collision is arguably as traumatic as the crash itself.

Injured riders may continually relive the moments leading up to their crash, the impact and resulting secondary impacts caused by colliding with the ground. Just the thought of riding again can trigger PTSD episodes, even years later.

Can You Get Compensation for PTSD After a Motorcycle Accident?

If someone else’s negligence caused your motorcycle accident, you can seek compensation for some damages from the at-fault party. However, Michigan’s negligence laws affect your eligibility for PTSD compensation in certain circumstances.

Economic Damages

State laws allow those involved in accidents to seek economic damages even if they are 99% responsible. Economic damages reimburse you for accident-related expenses, such as medical bills, lost wages, replacement services and property damage.

This category of damages is dollar-for-dollar, meaning that you’ll need to provide bills and receipts to prove how much money your accident cost you. Payroll documents can prove how much money you’re losing during your time away from work.

Non-Economic Damages

Michigan prevents those more than 50% at fault from obtaining non-economic damages. Compensation for PTSD falls under non-economic damages; other conditions include pain and suffering, losing the ability to enjoy life, damage to personal relationships and inconvenience. Basically, non-economic damages cover negative impacts on your quality of life.

Insurance companies don’t like paying non-economic damages and may use various tactics to avoid it. They might say that you don’t have PTSD or other conditions, blame it on an alternate cause or deny your claim altogether. They may also attempt to assign you an unfair degree of fault.

Exemplary Damages

In Michigan, few cases are eligible for exemplary damages. A judge must grant approval for you to seek these damages. If your situation qualifies, your Mike Morse Law Firm attorney can facilitate the process.

How Else Does Fault Affect Your Claim?

If you share responsibility for causing your accident, you will receive an assigned percentage of fault. Even if you still qualify to seek damages from other at-fault parties, expect a reduction in the amount you can receive by the same percentage. For example, if you are 25% at fault, you can only obtain 75% of your total damages.

One way insurance companies try to minimize your payout is by unfairly blaming you for contributing to your crash. If you don’t have legal representation, you might find it challenging to argue with them if they try to blame you for more responsibility than you deserve.

Ensuring that your assigned percentage of blame is accurate is one of the most important tasks your motorcycle accident lawyer performs. At the Mike Morse Law Firm, we take our responsibility very seriously. We will investigate your crash and gather evidence to support your claim.

What Is Negligence?

As the foundation for most personal injury claims, negligence refers to someone not behaving as a reasonable person would in the same situation. When it comes to motorcycle accidents, examples of other drivers’ negligence include speeding, distracted driving, following too closely, improper merging and driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or fatigue.

It’s not enough to claim that someone else was negligent; you need evidence to prove that:

• Someone owed you a duty of care.
• That party breached their duty of care.
• You sustained injuries.
• The breach was directly responsible for causing your injuries and accompanying damages.

A duty of care is a legal obligation to exercise care in one’s actions to reduce the risk of harming others. Things like following traffic laws and paying close attention to the act of driving are examples.

How Can a Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Help?

If you sustain injuries in a motorcycle accident, the last thing you need to worry about is fighting with insurance companies to get compensation for PTSD and other damages. You need to focus on recovery, but there are several tasks that someone needs to do in the days, weeks and months after your collision.

When you hire the Mike Morse Law Firm, we will:

• Provide information and legal advice
• Perform case-related administrative tasks
• Handle all communications with insurance companies on your behalf
• Investigate your accident, gather evidence and ensure fair placement of blame
• Negotiate a maximum compensation offer or take your case to trial

People with legal representation typically receive significantly higher compensation. Let us tell you more during a free, no-obligation case review.

Why Choose the Mike Morse Law Firm?

As Michigan’s largest personal injury law firm, we have the resources to handle your motorcycle accident claim effectively. Our track record speaks for itself: We have won over $1.5 billion for our clients. We are so confident in our ability to help you that we won’t charge any upfront costs, and you won’t pay any fees until we win compensation for you.

Everything we do is to promote your best interests. Contact the Mike Morse Law Firm today.