The weather is turning nice and that creates a whole host of opportunities for enjoying the roads. Obviously, summer is known as the driving season as people are out and about and doing things. It is also the motorcycle season. In fact, May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. It is also the bicycling season and the pedestrian season. All of these activities are wonderful. Motorcycling, bicycling and walking are gaining vast new popularity as not only are bicycling and walking healthy activities, but all three are considered to be green, or certainly greener than driving a car. These are all nice ways to enjoy the weather. Unfortunately, they are becoming increasingly dangerous ways to enjoy the weather, and to get around when the sun is out.
Motorcycling, bicycling, and walking along city streets all present their own levels of hazard and danger. In all three cases, people are sharing the roads with much heavier vehicles and people have very little in the way of protection. Hopefully motorcyclist or bicyclist would wear a helmet, but rarely are they wearing anything to protect their bodies. Pedestrians usually have nothing at all to protect them if they should be hit while crossing an intersection.
As the popularity of open travel increases and other hazards emerge on the roads, it should come as a surprise to no one that these activities are becoming increasingly perilous. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the number of pedestrians killed on US roadways has increased 46% from 2009 to 2016. Among bicyclists, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states that from 2010 to 2016 the increase has been over a third. Even among motorcyclists who actually enjoyed a significant decline in fatalities between 2008 and 2009, the number of fatalities has doubled in the period from 1999 to 2016.
In addition to the increased popularity of these activities, there are other reasons for the increase in fatalities. The big one is distraction. While distracted driving has shown itself to be a scourge for every manner of motor vehicle accident, distracted walking has also become a bit of a problem. The two together are quite lethal. Impairment through drugs and alcohol is also a significant contributing factor to the recent upsurge in fatalities. While the crack down on drunk driving has been very successful and saved thousands of lives, the opioid crises and increasing availability of marijuana is having a deleterious effect on the incident of impaired operation as well as impaired walking.
The best advice that I could give to anyone out on the roads, is to be careful and to realize that the motorist behind the wheel is not always looking out for you, and may not be paying attention to you at all. You should err on the side of protecting yourself: In terms of insurance, there are very specific things that people can do to protect themselves on the roads. The most obvious thing to do is to make sure that you have good health insurance. This helps protect you in the event of any kind of accident, although even the best medical insurance policies may leave you holding the bag for significant amounts of medical expenses, and do not protect you from wage losses and some of the other problems that occur after an accident. Disability insurance may help to fill some of that gap, but neither health insurance nor disability insurance offers complete financial protection.
I have blogged in the past about some of the issues that confront motorcyclists. In particular, I have advocated for motorcyclists to purchase Medical Payments coverage on their motorcycle insurance policy, as Personal Injury Protection Benefits do not exist for motorcyclists. In addition, there are games that can be played with the MedPay. However, there are also benefits to uninsured motorists coverage which I will discuss later.
For bicyclists and pedestrians, the ways to insure yourself are less obvious, but no less effective. There is no specific insurance policy for a bicyclist or a pedestrian. In fact, for purposes of insurance law, a bicyclist is a pedestrian. However, there are things that you can do to protect yourself and your family.
If you are a pedestrian or bicyclist hit by a car or other motor vehicle, you can go after the Personal Injury Protection Benefits (PIP) of the car that hit you. If that vehicle is uninsured, then you can pursue PIP benefits from your own car. If you do not have a vehicle of your own, because for example you are a child, but you live with a relative who does, then you can get PIP benefits from that household policy. The same is true of optional Medical Payments coverage and that can come in handy under the right circumstances. But what people commonly do not understand is that you insure yourself against getting hit by an uninsured or underinsured motorist.
Uninsured Motorist coverage is designed to stand in the shoes of the insurance company for the car that hit you when for whatever reason that car is uninsured. So this Uninsured Motorist coverage is useful in the case of hit and run, or stolen cars, or simply cars that are put on the road without insurance. The latter is a common problem here in Lowell as we are only a few miles from the New Hampshire border. Underinsured Motorist coverage protects you in a situation where the car may be insured, but it is not carrying enough insurance. Your own insurance company will step in and compensate you or the gap between what you insured yourself for and what that car happens to be carrying.
One issue that comes up often in my office and is the person who was, for example, a passenger in someone else’s car but was involved in an accident with an uninsured vehicle. They rarely understand why it is that I am asking them questions about their own insurance when their car was not involved in the accident. It gets even weirder when I am asking the questions of a household member of the injured person who was in somebody else’s car. But the reason for this becomes more obvious in the context of pedestrians and bicyclists. You insure yourself and you protect yourself and your family through uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. The intent of such coverage is not necessarily to protect strangers, friends, and acquaintances, although from time to time that may occur.
In a situation of conflicting coverages, you are covered by the uninsured motorist coverage of the vehicles you own. If you do not own a vehicle, then you are covered by the car insurance of household members. Simply put, a household member is someone with whom you live and to whom you are related to by blood, marriage, or adoption. So my children are covered by my insurance. When my niece used to live with me, she was covered too. This arrangement makes the most intuitive sense in the context of a pedestrian or bicyclist hit by a uninsured or underinsured car. There is no other insurance to go after, and it is good that you can protect yourself in these situations. The same is true for motorcyclists and frankly anybody in a motor vehicle. They can protect themselves even if they are injured while a passenger in a friend’s car. In fact, they can protect themselves even if the friend did not purchase very much in the way of uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, as their policy only kicks in if neither you or a household member have a car.
Back to the situation of a pedestrian or a bicyclist who is hit by an uninsured or underinsured motorist, they have the opportunity of collecting through the insurance on their own car or the vehicle of a household member. Uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage is not that well understood and people do not always understand why they need it. And while it is a wonderful thing to have for anyone who is out on the roads in their car or in anyone’s car for that matter, it is also very important for people who bicycle a lot or enjoy long walks along city streets. This coverage offers significant financial protection against rogue drivers who often are not paying attention; may be impaired, or are just having a bad day, and thus ruining your life.
Whether you are a motorcyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, or are behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, safety is a shared responsibility among all. One can never be too cautious and too aware of their surroundings. As everyone gets out to enjoy the long summer days, know what kind of coverage you should have in place to protect yourself and your family and what benefits you could be entitled to if you are hit by a motor vehicle.