A 2026 Bisnar Chase research white paper on motorcycle and car accident risk, fault, and personal injury claims
Motorcycle accidents are rarely random. They sit at the intersection of how drivers see — or fail to see — the riders around them, how quickly they judge a motorcycle’s speed and distance, and the assumptions they carry about who is to blame when a crash happens. To understand those dynamics, Bisnar Chase commissioned the independent research firm Cherry Data Signals to conduct a two-part survey of 4,322 people: 4,022 U.S. car drivers and 300 U.S. motorcyclists. The findings paint a striking picture of a road shared unequally.
Nearly two-thirds of drivers admit motorcycles are harder to see than cars. More than half struggle to judge how fast an approaching motorcycle is traveling. Around four in ten drivers concede they have changed lanes and only spotted a motorcycle at the last second. And while most drivers say motorcyclists deserve equal road space, a meaningful minority quietly views riders as second-class road users—an attitude that shapes split-second decisions and, later, who gets blamed.
For motorcyclists, the picture is harsher. More than nine in ten riders have experienced a near-miss with a car, truck, van, or SUV. Nearly half feel that, after a crash, others assumed they were at fault simply because they were on a motorcycle. And almost six in ten would not clearly know when to contact a motorcycle accident lawyer.
This white paper breaks down the data across six themes — road rights, visibility and speed perception, dangerous driver habits, blame and bias, crash fault and legal awareness, and prevention — and explains what each finding means for motorcycle accident victims pursuing a personal injury claim.
"These findings put hard numbers to something we see in our cases every week. Motorcyclists are often hurt not because they did anything wrong, but because a driver didn't see them, misjudged their speed, or assumed the worst about them afterward. Recognizing that pattern is the first step to holding the right party accountable."
This white paper draws on a two-part study commissioned by Bisnar Chase and conducted by the independent research firm Cherry Data Signals (cherrysignals.com), comprising 4,022 U.S. car drivers and a companion sample of 300 U.S. motorcyclists, for a combined sample of 4,322 respondents. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number and, for “select all that apply” questions, may total more than 100%. The data is self-reported, which matters for interpretation: when drivers admit to risky behavior, the true rate is likely higher, because people tend to underreport their own mistakes. That makes the driver admissions in this report a conservative floor, not a ceiling.
Respondents are carefully chosen from a geographically representative online panel of double opt-in members — individuals who have actively confirmed, twice, their willingness to participate in research, which reduces the risk of fraudulent or disengaged participation that can distort lower-quality survey work. From that base panel, the sample for this study was further tailored to meet the precise criteria required for the subject matter: the driver survey required licensed, active U.S. drivers, and the motorcyclist survey required active U.S. riders. Because the panel is geographically representative, the results reflect a broad cross-section of road users across regions, road types, and traffic environments rather than a single locality or rider subculture.
Screening did not stop at recruitment. Throughout the survey, questions were designed to carefully screen and authenticate respondents as the survey progressed, guaranteeing the alignment of each completed response with the ideal participant profile. Attention-check and qualifying questions were positioned to confirm that respondents genuinely belonged to the target population and were engaging with the questions as intended, so that a driver who did not actually drive, or a respondent who answered inattentively, could be identified and removed rather than diluting the findings.
To ensure the integrity of the data collection, the study employed an array of data quality methods working in combination. Alongside conventional technical safeguards, including digital fingerprinting to detect duplicate or fraudulent submissions, automated bot checks, geo-verification of respondent location, and speed detection to flag respondents racing through questions without genuine consideration, each response was also thoroughly reviewed by a dedicated team member to confirm quality and contextual accuracy.
This human layer is important: automated filters catch the obvious problems, but a trained reviewer can spot the subtler inconsistencies and contradictory answer patterns that purely algorithmic checks miss.
That commitment to quality extended to the open-ended responses as well. Free-text answers, such as riders’ one-sentence messages to drivers, were scrutinized for gibberish or nonsensical content and screened for plagiarism using a plagiarism-detection tool to remove copied or templated text. The result is a dataset in which both the closed-ended percentages and the qualitative themes can be read with confidence as reflecting real, attentive, and appropriately qualified road users.
A note on the two samples: the driver sample of 4,022 is large enough to support fine-grained breakdowns with a narrow margin of error, while the motorcyclist sample of 300 is best read as a directional, qualitative-leaning companion that gives voice to the rider experience and is most reliable for the larger, clearly separated differences reported here rather than for small percentage-point distinctions.
A few terms recur throughout. Lane splitting (also called “lane filtering”) is when a motorcycle rides between lanes of slower or stopped traffic; it is legal in California and a handful of other jurisdictions and illegal in most others. Comparative negligence is the legal principle that allocates fault between parties, a crucial concept in motorcycle accident claims, because even a rider found partly at fault can often still recover damages.
Most states follow a modified comparative negligence rule that bars recovery once a claimant is more than 50% (or 51%) at fault, while a few, including California, use pure comparative negligence, under which a rider can recover the percentage of damages attributable to the other driver even if the rider was mostly at fault. The left-turn collision, in which a car turns left across an oncoming motorcycle’s path, is one of the most common and most serious motorcycle crash scenarios on American roads. “Dooring” refers to a parked or stopped vehicle’s occupant opening a door into the path of a passing motorcycle, scooter, or cyclist.
Throughout this report, two interpretive principles apply. First, self-reported risky behavior is almost always understated, so driver admissions should be read as a conservative floor. Second, perception gaps — difficulty seeing a motorcycle or judging its speed — are not legal excuses. A driver’s duty of care includes the duty to look effectively, and “I didn’t see the motorcycle” is, in most crash scenarios, a description of negligence rather than a defense against it.
The foundation of road safety is whether drivers genuinely believe motorcyclists belong there. On the surface, the answer is reassuring. A combined 87% of drivers say motorcyclists have the same right to road space as cars — 62% “definitely” and 25% “mostly.” But that qualifier matters. One in four drivers will only go as far as “mostly,” and 13% land somewhere between “not always,” “no,” and “not sure.” When a quarter of drivers hedge on a question this basic, it signals that equal-rights language hasn’t fully translated into equal-rights instinct.
That gap widens under pressure. Asked whether they feel frustrated when a motorcycle rides in the center of a lane rather than hugging the side, 43% of drivers admit to frustration at least sometimes (12% often, 31% sometimes). Center-lane positioning is a deliberate, defensive riding technique; it keeps a rider visible and preserves an escape route, yet many drivers read it as an obstruction. The disconnect resurfaces when drivers are asked whether motorcyclists should move over to let cars pass: only 18% affirm that riders “have the same right to the lane,” while 44% say riders should move “only when it is safe,” and 34% expect them to yield when traffic builds or always. In other words, a large share of drivers treat a motorcycle’s full-lane rights as conditional.
Other answers soften the picture. A solid 58% reject the idea that motorcycles take up “too much space” on the road, though 35% say they sometimes or always do. On lane filtering in heavy traffic, drivers are split almost evenly: 28% supportive, 34% opposed, and 29% comfortable with it only in slow or stopped traffic—revealing how poorly understood the practice remains even where it is legal.
Perhaps the most candid finding in this section is that drivers don’t trust each other. Only 29% say most drivers respect motorcyclists as equal road users, while 53% say “some do” and 12% say most do not. And when forced to pick the statement closest to their view, drivers split between treating motorcyclists exactly like other vehicles (41%) and giving them extra space because they are more vulnerable (43%) — a healthy result. But roughly one in eight drivers chose a “second-class road user” framing, saying riders should stay out of the way of larger vehicles (8%) or that motorcyclists make roads more dangerous (5%). That minority is small, but on a fast-moving road, attitude becomes action.
There is a deeper pattern worth naming here. Drivers extend “equal rights” to motorcyclists most freely in the abstract and least freely in the moment of inconvenience. Eighty-seven percent endorse equal road space as a principle, but only 18% will defend a rider’s right to hold a full lane when a car wants to pass, and 43% feel frustration when a rider takes the center of the lane for safety. The principle survives until it costs the driver a few seconds. That conditional respect is the soil in which dangerous split-second decisions grow, and it helps explain why the visibility and blame data in later sections look the way they do.
What it means for claims: A driver who believes a motorcyclist should have “moved over” is a driver primed to shift blame after a crash and to repeat that narrative to police and insurers. When a defendant says the rider was “hogging the lane” or “riding aggressively,” that account often reflects this conditional-respect bias rather than the rider’s actual conduct. Establishing that a rider’s lane position was lawful and defensive — supported by the riding standards taught in motorcycle safety courses — is frequently a pivotal move in rebutting an early fault narrative. Understanding this bias is the first step in countering it.
If Section 1 is about attitude, Section 2 is about perception, and the numbers are sobering. Nearly two-thirds of drivers (63%) admit motorcycles are harder to see than cars, with 15% saying “much harder” and 48% “slightly harder.” This is not a character flaw; it is human physiology. Motorcycles present a narrow profile, and the brain is wired to register larger objects more readily. But the consequence is direct: a vehicle you struggle to see is a vehicle you are more likely to hit.
Speed and distance perception compound the problem. More than half of drivers (54%) say they find it harder to judge the speed of an approaching motorcycle than a car, and half (50%) struggle to judge a motorcycle’s distance. This is the mechanism behind the deadly left-turn collision: a driver looks, sees a motorcycle that appears far away and slow, and turns only for the rider to arrive far sooner than expected. The data shows this isn’t a rare misjudgment; it’s a structural perception gap affecting the majority of drivers on the road.
Asked when they are least likely to notice a motorcycle, drivers pointed to the exact situations that produce the most serious crashes. The top risk points were heavy traffic (46%), at night (44%), changing lanes (42%), and in bad weather (39%), followed by intersections (35%) and left turns (31%). Only 17% reported having no difficulty noticing motorcycles at all. These aren’t edge cases; lane changes, intersections, and night riding are the places where motorcyclists most often die or get injured.
The most alarming admissions are the near-miss confessions. Around four in ten drivers (41%) admit they have changed lanes and only noticed a motorcycle at the last second (18% more than once, 23% once). More than a third (35%) have pulled out of a junction, driveway, or side street and realized a motorcycle was closer than they thought. About one in four (26%) have misjudged the speed of an oncoming motorcycle while turning left. And nearly half (46%) have been surprised by a motorcycle in their blind spot at least sometimes. Each of these is a crash that almost happened — and given that people underreport their own errors, the real figures are almost certainly higher.
It is worth dwelling on why speed and distance misjudgment is so dangerous, because they are the engine of the deadliest motorcycle crashes. The human visual system estimates an approaching object’s speed partly by how quickly it expands in the field of view. A narrow object like a motorcycle expands more slowly than a wide one like a car traveling at the same speed, so the brain systematically underestimates how fast the motorcycle is closing. A driver waiting to turn left or pull out, therefore, perceives a comfortable gap that does not actually exist. When 54% of drivers admit difficulty judging motorcycle speed and 50% admit difficulty judging distance, they are describing a perceptual bias that operates below conscious awareness, which is exactly why “looking” is not the same as “seeing” and why drivers must learn to actively double-check and wait longer for motorcycles than instinct suggests.
What it means for claims: These admissions are powerful evidence in motorcycle accident litigation. When a defendant driver claims “the motorcycle came out of nowhere,” this data reframes that statement, for it is usually not proof the rider did anything wrong but an admission the driver failed to look properly, judge speed accurately, or check a blind spot. The same is true of “I never saw the motorcycle,” which appears in police reports after a large share of these crashes. Far from exonerating the driver, that phrase typically describes a failure to maintain a proper lookout, and the survey data showing that the majority of drivers struggle with motorcycle visibility and speed perception helps establish that the failure was foreseeable and preventable, the core of a negligence argument.
"In case after case, the driver tells the officer, 'I never saw the motorcycle.' This data shows exactly why — and that's the whole point. A driver's job is to look effectively for everyone on the road. Failing to see a motorcycle that was plainly there to be seen isn't a defense; more often than not, it is the negligence."
Awareness is only useful if it changes behavior. The survey suggests it often doesn’t. While 67% of drivers say they always or often check specifically for motorcycles before changing lanes, about one in three do not do so regularly (24% sometimes, 7% rarely, 2% never). Tellingly, drivers are far more confident about checking blind spots in general, 85% say they always or often do, than about checking specifically for motorcycles. That distinction matters enormously, because a glance that’s calibrated for cars routinely misses a motorcycle.
The catalog of risky habits is long and self-reported, meaning these are floors. Around one in five drivers (20%) admit to following a motorcycle more closely than they would a car, at least sometimes tailgating a vehicle that can stop far more quickly and has no crumple zone. More than one in four (28%) admit to opening a car door without checking for motorcycles, scooters, or cyclists, which can cause “dooring” crashes that throw a rider into traffic. Nearly one in five (18%) admit using a phone while driving near a motorcycle, and another 5% preferred not to say, suggesting the true rate is higher.
The pattern continues. About 13% admit passing a motorcycle within the same lane without fully changing lanes. Roughly 18% have drifted out of their lane and then noticed a motorcycle nearby. About 16% admit to failing to signal before changing lanes near a motorcycle. And around one in eight (12%) concede they have driven more aggressively after being annoyed by a motorcyclist, with another 6% declining to answer. Aggression born of irritation is exactly the attitude problem from Section 1, turning into a physical risk.
Drivers do know, in the abstract, what’s most dangerous. Asked to name the single most dangerous behavior for motorcyclists, they pointed to distracted driving (28%) and not checking blind spots (23%) as the top two, followed by turning left across a motorcycle’s path (13%) and unsafe lane changes (12%). The gap, then, isn’t knowledge. It’s the distance between knowing distracted driving kills riders and putting the phone down anyway.
There is also a revealing hierarchy in how readily drivers confess. The most socially acceptable lapses draw the highest admission rates, 28% for dooring and 20% for tailgating a motorcycle, while the most clearly culpable behaviors draw the lowest, with only 3–4% admitting to “often” using a phone near a motorcycle, passing within the lane, or driving aggressively out of annoyance. But the “prefer not to say” and “not sure” options capture a meaningful share of respondents on the most sensitive questions (5–6% for phone use and aggressive driving), which strongly suggests that the true rates of the most dangerous behaviors are higher than the headline numbers show. Self-reporting flatters the respondent; real-world behavior does not.
What this means for claims is that distracted driving, failure to signal, unsafe lane changes, and dooring are not just dangerous; they are also negligent. Each represents a breach of the duty of care that drivers owe to everyone on the road, including motorcyclists. Phone records, dashcam footage, and witness accounts that establish these behaviors are often the difference between a denied claim and a recovered one. In a distracted-driving case, a subpoena of the driver’s cell phone records can convert a vague “I didn’t see the motorcycle” into a documented timeline showing the driver was texting at the moment of impact. This is why preserving and pursuing the right evidence early, before footage is overwritten and memories fade, matters so much to the value of a motorcycle accident claim.
This section exposes the bias that follows riders from the road into the insurance claim and the courtroom. The instinct to blame the rider runs deep. Roughly three in four drivers (73%) say motorcyclists are at least sometimes more reckless than car drivers; 31% say “yes” outright, and 42% say “some are, but not most.” Whether that perception is fair or not, it becomes a lens through which every motorcycle crash is interpreted.
That lens distorts fault assessment before any facts are known. About one in four drivers (24%) admit that, if a car and motorcycle collide, they are more likely to assume the motorcyclist was speeding. One in five (21%) would instinctively assume the rider was at least partly at fault. And a third (34%) believe motorcyclists are more likely than car drivers to break traffic laws. These are pre-judgment assumptions about a hypothetical crash, made with no evidence at all, driven purely by the fact that one party was on two wheels.
Strikingly, drivers can see this bias even as they participate in it. Nearly half (45%) acknowledge that they sometimes unfairly blame motorcyclists after crashes. On insurance, more drivers believe insurers are biased against riders than believe they’re fair; 29% say insurers are more likely to blame motorcyclists, 28% disagree, and a large 43% are unsure. And the courtroom concern is the clearest of all: more than half of drivers (52%) believe juries are likely to view motorcyclists as risk-takers, with only 14% disagreeing.
What specifically triggers an assumption of rider fault? Drivers cited speeding (26%), aggressive riding (24%), and lane splitting or filtering (17%) as the factors that would most lead them to assume a motorcyclist was at fault. Only 16% said they would wait for the facts before assuming fault. The inclusion of lane filtering, a legal maneuver in California, shows how a lawful, safety-oriented practice can be weaponized into a fault narrative by jurors and adjusters who don’t understand it.
The lane-filtering finding deserves particular attention. 17% of drivers would assume a rider was at fault specifically because the rider was lane-splitting or filtering, a maneuver that is fully legal in California and is increasingly recognized elsewhere as a way to reduce a rider’s risk of being rear-ended in stopped traffic. When a lawful, safety-motivated act reads to nearly one in five drivers as evidence of fault, riders in those jurisdictions face a built-in handicap in the court of public opinion that can bleed directly into a jury box. Educating an adjuster, a judge, or a jury about the legality and safety rationale of filtering is sometimes necessary just to bring a rider back to a neutral starting line.
It is also striking how the bias coexists with self-awareness. The same population that pre-judges riders also recognizes the unfairness: 45% acknowledge riders are sometimes unfairly blamed, and 52% expect juries to see riders as risk-takers. People can name the stereotype and still be governed by it. That combination of bias and awareness of bias is precisely the condition under which careful, evidence-led advocacy can move opinions, because jurors who are reminded of their own assumptions are often willing to set them aside.
What it means for claims: This is the single most important section for any motorcycle accident victim to understand. The deck is tilted before the claim is even filed. Insurers know that jurors arrive with the “reckless rider” stereotype, and they price settlement offers accordingly, often opening low on the assumption that the rider will be assigned a large share of comparative fault. Overcoming this bias requires deliberate work to preserve evidence, reconstruct the crash, secure independent witnesses, and present the rider’s lawful, defensive choices in context. It is precisely where experienced motorcycle accident representation changes outcomes, because the gap between the rider’s actual conduct and the assumed “reckless rider” narrative is where settlement value is won or lost.
"The 'reckless rider' stereotype is real, and insurance companies know how to use it. When more than half of drivers believe juries see motorcyclists as risk-takers, that assumption shows up as lowball settlement offers. Our job is to replace assumption with evidence — and to make sure the rider is judged on the facts, not the fact that they were on two wheels."
When drivers reason about specific crash types rather than abstractions, they get closer to the truth, but significant confusion remains, with legal consequences.
On the classic left-turn collision, only 37% correctly identify the car driver as usually at fault, while 36% say “it depends,” 14% say both are equally responsible, and 8% blame the motorcyclist. In reality, a driver turning left across oncoming traffic generally bears the duty to yield, so the high “it depends” share reflects genuine uncertainty about a scenario that injures and kills thousands of riders each year. Fault becomes clearer in other scenarios: 55% correctly attribute a lane-change-into-a-motorcycle crash to the car driver, and 66% recognize that rear-ending a motorcycle is usually the following driver’s fault. The pattern is consistent: the more clearly a scenario implicates the driver, the more readily drivers accept it, while the more a rider’s positioning is involved, the more drivers reach for “it depends.”
Practical knowledge has real gaps. Nearly six in ten drivers (58%) don’t clearly know how much following distance to leave behind a motorcycle (39% say no, 19% unsure). Drivers are also divided or mistaken on stopping distance: 24% wrongly believe motorcycles need less stopping space than cars, 21% say more, 28% say about the same, and the rest are unsure, a dangerous misconception, since real-world stopping ability depends heavily on conditions and rider skill.
Post-crash readiness is mixed. Asked what they would do first after a minor collision with a motorcycle, 48% would check whether the rider is injured, and 24% would call 911—humane and correct priorities. But only a small share would immediately document the scene (5% photos/video, 10% exchange insurance, and 3% call their insurer). Knowledge of what evidence matters is shaky: 37% say they don’t really know or don’t know at all what evidence is important after a motorcycle crash, and only 18% feel “very clearly” informed.
When prompted on which evidence matters most, drivers correctly prioritized the police report (68%), insurance details (58%), and photos of vehicle damage (57%), but undervalued medical records (39%) and road and weather conditions (31%), two categories that are often decisive in proving the severity of injuries and the cause of a crash. Dashcam and helmet-cam footage (54%) and traffic camera footage (44%) ranked in the middle, despite often being the most objective evidence available.
The contrast across the three crash scenarios is instructive. Drivers recognize fault most clearly when the geometry of the crash points unmistakably at the driver—66% for rear-ending, 55% for a lane change—and least clearly when the rider’s position or speed is part of the picture, as in the left-turn case, where correct attribution drops to 37% and “it depends” climbs to 36%. The legal reality is more settled than public opinion: a driver turning left across oncoming traffic generally must yield to vehicles that are close enough to be a hazard, motorcycles included. The wide “it depends” share in the survey reflects not genuine legal nuance but rather the combined effects of the speed-perception problem from Section 2 and the blame bias from Section 4—drivers leave room to suspect the rider was going too fast, even when the duty to yield rested with the turning car.
The evidence findings carry a practical warning. Drivers’ instinct to prioritize the police report, insurance details, and damage photos is sound as far as it goes, but the categories they underrate, medical records (valued by only 39%) and road and weather conditions (31%), are frequently the ones that determine a claim’s outcome. Medical records establish the existence, severity, and cause of injuries, which drive the value of any personal injury claim; without prompt treatment and documentation, an insurer will argue the injuries were minor or unrelated. Road and weather conditions can establish why a crash happened and whether a hazard contributed. Camera footage, dashcams, helmet cams, and traffic or surveillance cameras are often the most objective evidence available, yet much of it is automatically overwritten within days, so acting quickly is not optional.
What it means for claims: The “it depends” reflex on left-turn crashes mirrors how jurors approach these cases, which is why clear crash reconstruction is so valuable. The public often underrates the importance of medical records, road conditions, and camera footage, highlighting why the hours and days after a motorcycle accident are critical. Evidence that isn’t preserved early is often gone for good, and the burden of proving the driver’s negligence falls on the injured rider, not the other way around.
Despite the friction in earlier sections, there is broad agreement on the path forward, and the responsibility riders and drivers assign falls heavily on driver behavior.
Asked what would most improve motorcycle safety, drivers led with checking blind spots more carefully (25%), tougher penalties for distracted driving (20%), and better driver education about motorcycles (18%). Notably, the top answers point inward, at driver behavior, rather than outward at riders. Support for systemic change is strong: 74% of drivers want driver education to include more training on sharing the road with motorcycles, and 69% support adding specific motorcycle-awareness questions to driving tests. Most telling of all, after working through the survey’s questions, nearly nine in ten drivers (87%) agree that drivers could do more to protect motorcyclists, 42% “definitely” and 45% “somewhat.” Self-reflection, it turns out, moves the needle.
The companion survey of 300 motorcyclists confirms, from the saddle, much of what drivers half-admit. Riders experience the road as a place where they are tolerated more than respected. Only 9% say most drivers treat motorcyclists as equal road users, while 41% say most or almost all drivers do not. More than three in four riders (77%) feel motorcyclists are treated as “second-class road users” at least sometimes. And about two-thirds (66%) feel pressured by drivers to give up lane space, with nearly seven in ten saying drivers appear frustrated by their lane position.
On the behaviors that endanger them, riders’ rankings mirror drivers’ — distracted driving (25%), drivers not checking blind spots (23%), drivers turning left across their path (17%), and unsafe lane changes (16%) top the list. The lived frequency is staggering: more than nine in ten riders say drivers fail to see them or notice them too late at least sometimes (24% very often, 39% often). Eight in ten riders say they often or very often see drivers using phones or appearing distracted near them. And around nine in ten report being cut off by drivers at least sometimes.
Near-misses are nearly universal. More than nine in ten riders have had a near-miss with a larger vehicle — 46% many times. The most recent near-miss was most often caused by a driver changing lanes without seeing them (24%), a distracted driver (21%), or a driver pulling out from a side street or driveway (18%). About three in ten riders (31%) have been in a motorcycle accident with another vehicle, and among those, 53% believe the other driver was primarily at fault, while only 8% blame themselves.
The bias riders feel is not imagined. Nearly half (47%) feel others assumed they were at fault simply because they were on a motorcycle. Around four in ten (38%) say they were blamed for a crash or near-miss they believe a driver caused. And 41% have avoided reporting a near-miss or minor crash because they thought nothing would happen, a silence that keeps the true scale of the problem hidden from official data.
Riders are not passive about their safety. The vast majority take active steps to be seen: 81% avoid blind spots, 76% use strategic lane positioning, and 72% run headlights during the day. Yet nearly nine in ten (88%) say drivers still fail to notice them even when they take these steps, proving that rider conspicuity alone cannot solve a problem rooted in driver attention. The moments riders feel most invisible are exactly the high-risk ones: when cars change lanes (26%) and at intersections (24%).
On the legal side, the rider data reveals a costly awareness gap. Nearly three in four riders (72%) believe motorcyclists are more likely than car drivers to be blamed after a crash, and only 12% think insurers generally treat motorcycle accident claims fairly. Yet preparedness lags: about one in five riders (21%) would not really know what steps to take after being injured, and nearly six in ten (59%) would not clearly know when to contact a motorcycle accident lawyer. Riders correctly sense that police reports and medical care matter most, but fewer recognize the danger of speaking to insurers without advice (10%) or accepting a quick settlement (9%), two of the most common ways a valid claim gets undervalued.
When asked what would most prompt them to call a lawyer, riders pointed to serious injury (28%), medical bills (14%), an insurer blaming them (14%), and a driver denying fault (11%) — precisely the disputes where legal representation matters most. And on what they wish drivers understood, riders’ answers converge on a few urgent messages: motorcycles are harder to see, so “look twice” (25%); distracted driving can be deadly (18%); and motorcyclists have the same right to the road (17%). Their open-ended pleas are blunt: Look twice before changing lanes or turning. Give us more space. Don’t assume we’re speeding. Put your phone down. Your small mistake can seriously injure or kill us.
Read together, the two surveys tell a coherent and uncomfortable story. Drivers largely mean well — they affirm riders’ rights, they identify the right dangers, and they overwhelmingly support better education. But beneath that goodwill runs a current of difficulty and bias: motorcycles are hard to see, their speed and distance are hard to judge, and when something goes wrong, the instinct to blame the rider arrives before the facts do. Riders, for their part, live inside that gap every day, seen too late, pressured out of their lane, and assumed at fault even when a driver’s error caused the crash.
The practical lessons are clear. For drivers: look twice, check specifically for motorcycles, judge speed conservatively, and treat a rider’s lane positioning as the defensive choice it usually is. For riders: stay visible, ride defensively, and know the steps that protect a future motorcycle accident claim: get medical care, preserve evidence, be cautious with insurers, and understand that being partly blamed does not mean a claim is lost. Under comparative negligence rules, even a rider assigned partial fault can often still recover meaningful compensation.
Above all, the data confirms what motorcyclists have long argued: the burden of safety, and too often the burden of blame, falls disproportionately on the most vulnerable people on the road. Closing that gap starts with seeing the rider on the road, in the insurance file, and in the courtroom.
"Sharing the road is a two-way responsibility, but the consequences are not shared equally. When a driver's mistake seriously injures a motorcyclist, that rider deserves to be seen clearly, on the road, by the insurance company, and in front of a jury. That is the fight we take on every day."
The survey shows that most riders and drivers would prioritize safety after a crash, and far fewer would protect the evidence that ultimately decides a personal injury claim. The two goals are not in conflict; both can be addressed in the right order.
The first priority is always health and safety: move out of traffic if it is safe to do so, and seek medical attention even if injuries feel minor. Adrenaline masks pain, and conditions like concussions, internal injuries, and soft-tissue damage often surface hours or days later. Prompt medical care protects both the rider’s health and the medical record that links the injuries to the crash.
The second priority is documentation. Where possible, call the police and ensure a report is filed, as the police report is the single most-cited piece of evidence by both drivers and riders in this survey. Photograph the vehicles, the wider scene, skid marks, road and weather conditions, traffic signals, and any visible injuries. Collect the other driver’s insurance and contact information, and critically, the names and phone numbers of independent witnesses, who can counter a biased fault narrative later. Note nearby businesses or intersections that may have surveillance or traffic cameras, since that footage is often overwritten within days.
"After a motorcycle crash, the most valuable evidence — camera footage, skid marks, a witness's fresh memory — starts disappearing within days. Your health comes first, always. But if you or someone with you can photograph the scene and collect witness details, that simple step can make or break a claim months down the road."
The third priority is to avoid the common mistakes that quietly sink valid claims. Do not admit fault or apologize at the scene; statements made in shock are easily taken out of context. Be cautious giving a recorded statement to an insurer before seeking advice, and be wary of a fast settlement offer that arrives before the full extent of injuries is known. As the data shows, only about one in ten riders recognizes how much these two moves — speaking to insurers without advice and accepting a quick settlement — can reduce the value of a claim. When fault is disputed, injuries are serious, or an insurer begins assigning blame to the rider, those are the moments the survey’s own respondents identify as the right time to consult a motorcycle accident lawyer.
Because motorcycles have a narrow visual profile, they are harder to detect and more likely to be lost in blind spots, against cluttered backgrounds, and at night. In this survey, 63% of drivers admitted that motorcycles are harder to see than cars, and 46% had been surprised by a motorcycle in their blind spot. The problem is compounded by misjudgments of speed and distance: more than half of drivers struggle to estimate how fast an approaching motorcycle is traveling.
In most cases, a driver turning left across oncoming traffic has a duty to yield to vehicles close enough to be a hazard, including motorcycles, so the turning driver typically bears primary fault. Notably, only 37% of surveyed drivers correctly identified the car driver as usually at fault in this scenario, with many defaulting to “it depends,” a gap between public perception and legal reality that injured riders frequently have to overcome.
Lane splitting (or filtering) is legal in California and is permitted in a small but growing number of jurisdictions; it remains illegal in most states. Legality does not automatically determine fault in a given crash. However, 17% of drivers in this survey said they would assume a rider was at fault simply for lane splitting, a bias that can unfairly color an insurance claim or jury’s view, even where the maneuver was lawful and safely performed.
The perception is widespread and shared across both groups surveyed. Nearly three in four riders (72%) believe motorcyclists are more likely than drivers to be blamed, and 47% feel others assume they were at fault simply because they were on a motorcycle. Even among drivers, 45% acknowledge riders are at least sometimes unfairly blamed, and 52% believe juries view riders as risk-takers. This bias is a central reason riders benefit from documenting crashes thoroughly.
Often, yes. Under comparative negligence rules, a rider’s compensation is reduced by their share of fault rather than eliminated. In pure comparative negligence states like California, a rider can recover the portion of damages attributable to the other party even if found mostly at fault; in modified comparative negligence states, recovery is typically barred only once the rider is more than 50% or 51% at fault. Being assigned some blame does not necessarily end a claim.
The police report, photographs of the vehicles and the scene, independent witnesses’ contact details, medical records, and any available camera footage (dashcam, helmet cam, traffic, or surveillance) are typically the most valuable. Survey respondents tended to overrate the police report and underrate medical records and road conditions, yet medical records establish the severity and cause of injuries, which drive a claim’s value, and much camera footage is overwritten within days.
The riders surveyed pointed to serious injury, mounting medical bills, an insurer assigning them blame, and a driver denying fault as the strongest triggers. These are exactly the situations where disputed liability and the rider-blame bias documented in this report most affect the outcome — and where early legal guidance can protect both the evidence and the claim’s value. Nearly six in ten riders admitted they would not clearly know when that moment had arrived.
This report is based on a survey commissioned by Bisnar Chase and conducted by Cherry Data Signals (cherrysignals.com) of 4,022 U.S. car drivers and 300 U.S. motorcyclists. Figures are self-reported and rounded; “select all that apply” totals may exceed 100%. This white paper is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
Articles, blogs, and content have been reviewed by legal in-house staff. Brian Chase is the managing partner of Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, LLP. He is the lead trial lawyer and oversees cases handling dangerous and defective products that injure consumers. Brian is a top-rated injury attorney with numerous legal honors and awards for his work relating to auto defects and dangerous products. His firm has recovered over $1B for its clients. Brian is a frequent speaker for CAOC, Dordick Trial College, and OCTLA, covering personal injury trial techniques.
