Safety Gear Can Change Sentiment

We all know the importance of staying safe on the roads.  For those who travel on two-wheels, equipment and gear can be the difference between walking away, minor injuries, serious injuries, or death.

But often that safety gear can do even more than you realize.  If you’re wearing all of the right protective gear, and you’re properly trained riding a modern bike, but you’re still injured in a motorcycle accident, your claim could work out better than expected.  The Car Crash Captain explains.

Using the Right Safety Gear

Staying safe while riding requires understanding how traffic is moving, proper handling of your own motorcycle, and also wearing the proper safety gear.

Safety gear essentially boils down to clothing.  Riding in shorts and a t-shirt do little to protect the rider from scrapes, burns, lesions, broken bones, and more.  Instead, the proper gloves, jackets, and even body armor will ensure that minimal damage is done to the rider in the event of a wreck.

Check out our previous blog post on protective clothing to see what you should be paying attention to.

Helmets and Proper Usage

In addition to clothing, one of the most important pieces of safety gear you can own (and use) is the helmet.  Keep in mind that not all helmets are created equal – some will provide adequate protection, while others will do little more than provide a complete motorcycle rider look.

In the US, helmets that will meet the top safety standards are those that are DOT approved.  In fact, to be street legal they have to meet the DOT approval.  You can read all about the DOT approved helmets on our DOT helmet blog.

Other Protective Gear

There is one last piece of protective gear that many people tend to overlook.  Fortunately, it’s built into the best helmets on the market, but some helmets don’t include it.

We’re talking about eye protection.  When you’re whipping down the road at 35 miles per hour, or more, it doesn’t take much to cause some extensive damage to the eye.  A wayward bug, a falling leaf, or even a spec of dust may irritate just enough to start the cause and effect to lose control of the bike.

Learn about eye protection on our previous post where we weigh the pros and cons of different forms of eye protection.

Bike Modifications

There are, just a few more aspects of safety gear that we should go over.  Often motorcycles come with minimal amenities.  Just like cars have different trim levels, your bike may have come as more-or-less a bare bones model.  There are modifications that can be done to upgrade to a safer ride.

One of those is adding crash bars.  These things help to provide a little buffer in the event that you do wreck, and can stave off some of the more serious injuries.  Learn more about those crash bars and other safety gear in our post from 2023.

Herbert Law Group Helps with Your Motorcycle Accident Case

This is all important, and that safety gear can reduce the injuries sustained, but how does that help if you’ve been in a wreck and you’re seriously injured?

Often, insurance companies can try to play games with the claims.  It’s not legal, but they can throw things out there like, “Well, if proper gear had been worn, the bones wouldn’t have broken, our settlement offer reflects that.”

Of course, they’re usually sneakier about it.  When you do wear the proper gear, and the injuries are still severe, we can argue that you did everything right, but you’re the victim of another driver’s negligence.  Your settlement can increase, go more smoothly, and ultimately, you’re on the road to recovery sooner.

Let’s find out what happened.  Call our offices at 214-414-2808, or fill out our contact form, and we’ll have a free conversation and determine a plan of action.