Every year, May is designated as Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, and it always lands at the right time. The weather warms up, the bikes come out of winter storage, and the number of motorcycles on Hampton Roads streets climbs sharply. It's the season when riders need to be most careful and when other drivers need to actually start looking for them. Neither always happens, and the crash numbers reflect that.
The annual safety push exists because the trend hasn't been good. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 6,228 motorcyclists were killed in U.S. traffic crashes in 2024. That's 15 percent of all traffic fatalities and one of the highest motorcycle death tolls recorded since the agency started tracking the data in 1975. Per mile traveled, riders are now 27 times more likely than people in passenger cars to die in a crash. Virginia recorded 117 motorcycle-involved fatalities in 2024 alone.
Behind those numbers are families dealing with sudden deaths, permanent disabilities, and lives that won't look the same again. For victims who survive, the road back often involves multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy, lost income, and pain that doesn't fully go away. A Virginia Beach motorcycle accident lawyer who works these cases regularly understands what's actually at stake and what it takes to recover full compensation under Virginia's harsh contributory negligence law.
Negligence Causes Most Motorcycle Crashes
The stereotype is that motorcyclists are reckless. The studies say otherwise.
Researchers have looked at this question from many angles. Investigators have pulled data from several different sources:
- Police reports from motorcycle crashes
- Inspections of the vehicles involved
- Interviews with motorcycle accident victims, both drivers and passengers
- Interviews with witnesses
- Motorcycle crash scene investigations
- Helmet reconstructions used to determine where the impact occurred
- Hospital records on the types of injuries victims sustained
When all that information gets put together, a clear pattern emerges. In more than half of motorcycle crashes involving another vehicle, the driver of the other vehicle was at fault. The classic example is a car turning left across a motorcycle's path, either because the driver didn't see the bike or misjudged how fast it was approaching. It happens at intersections across Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and the rest of Hampton Roads, and it happens often.
When a motorcycle accident occurs, one of the following elements is commonly present:
- Distracted driving, especially phone use
- Drunk or drugged driving
- Failure to yield the right of way
- Reckless or aggressive driving
- Poor road maintenance or unmarked hazards
- Following too closely behind a motorcycle
- Sudden lane changes without checking blind spots
The phone problem has gotten worse, not better. Even though Virginia banned holding a phone while driving in 2021, enforcement is uneven, and plenty of drivers still do it. The split-second a driver looks down to read a text is exactly the moment they're most likely to miss a motorcycle approaching the intersection.
Why Virginia Cases Are Different
Virginia is one of only a handful of jurisdictions in the country that still uses contributory negligence. If a jury finds the injured rider even one percent at fault for the crash, the entire claim can be barred. That makes Virginia motorcycle cases unusually difficult. Insurance companies know the rule, and they use it. Their defense lawyers will look at every angle, whether the rider was wearing bright clothing, whether the headlight was on, whether the bike was being operated within the speed limit, whether the rider had completed a safety course, and whether the helmet met DOT standards.
Most of those issues don't actually defeat a claim, but the company will use them to push for a low settlement or no settlement at all. An experienced motorcycle attorney knows how to push back. That includes hiring accident reconstruction experts when needed, pulling traffic camera footage before it is overwritten, interviewing witnesses while memories are fresh, and documenting the rider's training, gear, and conduct before the crash.
Compensation for Motorcycle Accident Victims
The injuries suffered in a motorcycle crash tend to be severe because of how exposed a rider is. Hitting pavement or another vehicle at even moderate speeds takes a serious toll on the body. Broken bones, concussions, burns, spinal damage, traumatic brain injuries, and death are all real possibilities.
Those injuries don't just hurt. They cost. Medical bills pile up fast, and not just the obvious ones. The ambulance ride, the ER visit, the surgeries, the hospital stay, the follow-up appointments, the physical therapy three times a week for six months, the prescriptions, the crutches, the home modifications if the injury is permanent. All of that adds up, and all of it can be part of what an injured rider claims in a lawsuit. So can future medical care, because some of these injuries don't ever fully heal.
Lost income is the other big piece. A rider who's out of work for six weeks loses six weeks of pay. A rider who can't go back to the job they had before, or who can't work at all, loses far more than that. Virginia law allows recovery of both wages already lost and the loss of earning capacity going forward. For a younger rider with a serious injury, that future loss can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Beyond the bills, there's everything else a serious injury takes from someone. Pain and suffering. Emotional trauma. Permanent disability. Scarring and disfigurement from road rash or burns that don't fully fade. The loss of being able to do the things that made life enjoyable, whether that's riding, gardening, playing with kids, or just sleeping through the night without pain. These aren't soft damages. They're real, and Virginia juries can award compensation for all of them.
When a motorcycle crash kills someone, the case becomes a wrongful death claim instead of a personal injury claim. Virginia's wrongful death statute allows surviving family members to recover for the income the deceased would have provided, the services they performed at home, the comfort and companionship they gave, and the funeral expenses. The two-year deadline for filing applies here, too, and missing it is the single most common way a strong case gets thrown out. That's why talking to an attorney early matters so much.
A Firm With Decades of Motorcycle Case Experience
Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp has represented injured motorcyclists and their families across Virginia and North Carolina since 1985. If you or a loved one was injured in a motorcycle accident, you may be facing high medical bills and other financial pressures on top of everything else. Our Virginia Beach motorcycle accident lawyers understand how overwhelming these cases can be, and we know how to push back when insurance companies try to use Virginia's contributory negligence rule to deny what you're owed.
The legal team at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp has successfully advocated for many motorcycle accident clients, including recovering a $1.85 million settlement for the family of a rider who was killed by a negligent truck driver. Call our office today at 833-997-1774 to schedule a free consultation, and ask about our free motorcycle injury guide, which contains information riders and families often find useful after a crash.
Our firm has offices in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Norfolk, and Chesapeake, and we're proud to serve injured riders and their families across Hampton Roads.
