Adam S. Kutner, Injury Attorneys · Las Vegas Valley
Las Vegas Motorcycle Accident Lawyer
4.7 ★★★★★ 2,735 Google Reviews
Get Your Free Motorcycle Accident Consultation
No fees unless we win!
We answer day and night · No obligation
Recognized Across Nevada
Best of Las Vegas 2025 Gold Winner
Top 100 Trial Lawyers
Million Dollar
Advocates Forum
Martindale-Hubbell Client Champion
Avvo Clients’ Choice
BBB Accredited
VGK Official Partner
In This Guide
Why Should You Hire a Lawyer for Your Motorcycle Accident Claim?
You should hire a lawyer for a motorcycle accident claim because insurers make assumptions about riders that the evidence does not support. In a car-versus-car claim, the argument is about what happened at the intersection. In a car-versus-motorcycle claim, it is often about the motorcycle itself: how fast you must have been going, what you were wearing, whether you were taking a risk just by being out there. Those assumptions shape the offer long before anyone reads your medical records, and they hold up only until someone makes the insurer prove them.
Adam S. Kutner is a former insurance defense attorney and knows exactly how the insurance companies work. We consistently see the same arguments in rider claims, and we help protect you from them:
The helmet assumption
The claim can be approached as though you were bare-headed and reckless. Nevada facts say otherwise.
The speed story with no evidence
He must have been flying. Skid measurements, camera footage, and the damage pattern on both vehicles either support that or they do not.
The comparative-fault lever
Every percentage point of fault assigned to you cuts your recovery by that much. Moving you from a small share of the blame to nearly half of it can halve what an insurer pays without ever disputing your injuries.
The gear-and-lifestyle argument
Photos of the bike, the jacket, the group ride. None of it decides who failed to yield.
Nevada Motorcycle Rider Laws
|
Rule |
What Nevada Law Says |
Why It Matters to Your Claim |
|---|---|---|
|
Helmets |
Every driver and passenger must wear securely fastened protective headgear on a highway, at any age, plus eye protection unless the bike has a compliant windscreen. |
Nevada is a universal-helmet state, so a helmet argument has to contend with a statewide requirement that riders wear one. |
|
Lane splitting |
You may not ride between moving or stationary vehicles occupying adjacent traffic lanes, and you may not overtake or pass another vehicle within the same lane. But two riders may ride abreast in a single lane if both consent. |
Lane splitting is illegal in Nevada and an insurer will look for it. Riding two abreast is lawful, so it is not a traffic violation they can point to. |
|
Shared fault |
Your recovery is not barred if your share of the negligence was not greater than the other side’s. Damages are reduced by your percentage. |
You can be found 50% at fault and still recover. At 51% you recover nothing. |
|
Deadline |
Two years from the crash to bring a personal injury action. |
Evidence disappears long before the deadline does. Private security footage is often overwritten on a short cycle, so it has to be requested early. |
Nevada’s rule is written as not greater than, so a rider assigned exactly half the blame still recovers half the damages.
The Motorcycle Helmet Argument, Against the Numbers
In 2023, Nevada recorded 389 traffic deaths. Sixty-nine of them, 18%, were motorcyclists, according to NHTSA’s State Traffic Data: 2023 Data. Close to a fifth of everyone killed on Nevada roads that year was on a bike.
Of those 69 riders, 61 were wearing one. Only eight were not. A helmet protects the head; it does nothing for the crushed limbs, internal trauma, and shattered joints that drive the value of these cases.
Where Las Vegas Puts Motorcycle Riders at Risk
Four situations come up again and again in Las Vegas rider cases, all of them versions of another driver not registering that a motorcycle is there:
The left turn across your path
A driver waiting to turn left judges the gap against a car-sized object and turns into a narrower one.
The lane change into your space
A motorcycle’s narrow profile can disappear into a mirror blind spot.
The opening door
Where cars park at the curb, doors open into traffic without a mirror check, and there is nowhere for a rider to go
Night riding
One headlight among marquees, taxis, and rideshare cars stopping without warning is a visibility problem that careful riding only partly answers.
A left-turn case comes down to sight lines and signal timing; a lane-change case hinges on mirror position and lane markings.
What to Do After a Motorcycle Accident
What to do after a motorcycle crash differs from a car crash in four ways, and each one protects evidence that disappears quickly:
- Do not let anyone move you or the bike until help arrives.
Spinal injuries are common in rider crashes and moving too early makes them worse. Final rest positions of both vehicles are also what an accident reconstruction is built from. - Keep the helmet and the gear.
Keep them unwashed and unrepaired. They are evidence of impact forces and of what you were wearing, and they are the cleanest answer to a helmet or speed argument. - Photograph the sight lines, not just the damage.
Stand where the other driver was sitting and photograph what they could see. Left-turn and lane-change cases are decided by whether you were visible from that position. - Get a witness who saw the approach, not just the impact.
Anyone can describe a crash they heard. A rider case turns on who saw the motorcycle before the collision, and where it was in the lane. - Get the injury mechanism into the medical record early.
Ask your treating physicians to document how the crash caused each injury, not just what hurts. That record is what forces the insurer to argue about the intersection instead of the motorcycle. If your regular doctor cannot see you the same day, go to an urgent care.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Motorcycle Accident?
Responsibility for a motorcycle accident falls on whoever caused the crash, because Nevada is an at-fault state. In rider cases that party is not always the obvious driver, and finding the right one early keeps the deadline from running on whoever actually pays. We can help you identify who is responsible:
- The driver who turned, merged, or followed too closely, along with the owner of the vehicle if it was someone else’s
- A commercial carrier, delivery service, or rideshare company whose driver was working at the time
- A government entity responsible for an unrepaired road hazard, unsafe construction zone, or obscured signal. These claims work differently: present the claim to the Attorney General or the entity’s governing body within two years (NRS 41.036), and know that any award is capped at $200,000 per claimant with no punitive damages (NRS 41.035). Identify a government defendant early, because both the ceiling and the procedure change.
- A manufacturer, when a defective tire, brake component, or helmet contributed to the injuries
- A repair shop whose work failed
Our guide to how fault is determined in a motorcycle accident covers the evidence that decides these questions, and Nevada’s at-fault system explains how it differs from a no-fault state.
Injuries in Motorcycle Cases
A rider absorbs the crash with their body rather than inside a steel cage, so these injuries run more severe than in a car crash. Motorcycle crashes produce a recognizable set of injuries:
- Traumatic brain injury and concussion, including in helmeted riders
- Spinal cord injury, from herniated discs through partial or complete paralysis
- Road rash severe enough to require debridement, grafting, and permanent scarring
- Fractures and crush injuries to the legs, ankles, and pelvis
- Amputation and loss of use
- Internal bleeding and organ damage
- Facial, jaw, and dental injuries
Road rash is easy to underestimate from a photograph taken months later, so the early wound record carries the claim. Our guide to treating and documenting road rash covers what to keep.
What Is My Motorcycle Accident Case Worth?
What your motorcycle accident case is worth comes down to how badly you were hurt, how permanent it is, what it costs you in income and daily life, and how clean the liability evidence is. There is no multiplier and no chart. Any Las Vegas motorcycle accident attorney who quotes you a compensation figure before reading your medical records is guessing.
Economic damages cover what can be added up: emergency and ongoing treatment, future care, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, and the bike itself. Non-economic damages cover what cannot: pain, loss of enjoyment, the ride you no longer take. Where the at-fault driver was operating a vehicle after willfully consuming alcohol or another prohibited substance, Nevada also allows punitive damages (NRS 42.010); outside that they require clear and convincing evidence of oppression, fraud, or malice (NRS 42.005).
For the detail, read our breakdowns of what drives motorcycle settlement value and the damages available in a Nevada injury claim.
“I got in an accident on Las Vegas Boulevard, a motorcycle accident the guy cut me off going into a McDonalds like a ninety-degree angle turn and I was in the slow lane and he cut me off and I slammed right into him. Adam Kutner gave me a settlement that was satisfactory to my needs and it helped me out in a timely manner. After the accident Adam Kutner found me the right doctor, the right spinal person to go to, and the right chiropractor and everything got taken care of.”
Michael Werner motorcycle accident
Was the crash your fault, or does it just look that way?
Call (702) 382-0000 and walk us through it. Rider claims depend on details that photographs of the bike will not show, and it costs nothing to find out what yours are worth.
Questions Motorcycle Riders Ask in Las Vegas
Talk to a Las Vegas Motorcycle Accident Lawyer
Tell us what happened and what the insurance company has said so far. Our Las Vegas motorcycle accident lawyers will tell you honestly whether the claim is worth bringing, and what evidence needs preserving now before it disappears.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, talk to a qualified Nevada attorney.
¿Prefiere hablar en español?
Nuestro equipo atiende a la comunidad en español, y la consulta es gratuita.