T he law is stacked against cyclists in North Carolina.
The common law doctrine of contributory negligence rules that if a plaintiff is more than one percent responsible for an accident, he or she can’t collect damages.
As applied to traffic law, it means that if a cyclist is hit and injured by a vehicle, sues the driver for damages and cannot prove he or she did absolutely nothing to cause the accident, he or she will lose the suit.
North Carolina should find an alternative to this doctrine in the case of automobile-bicycle collisions.
Contributory negligence has already negatively affected cyclists riding in the state. According to the Carolina Public Press, Asheville cylist Sheri Baker was involved in May in an accident with a car that left her with a nagging knee injury. Because the driver and a witness claimed they didn’t see Baker’s headlamp as the car turned into her path, she couldn’t claim any compensation for damages.
In the District of Columbia, a jurisdiction in which contributory negligence is applied, D.C. councilman David Grosso is pursuing legislation to switch to a comparative negligence standard. This would proportionately place blame on both cyclists and drivers.
It took a drastic increase in accidents involving cyclists to incite Grosso’s legislative action. North Carolina shouldn’t wait for its average yearly figure of 978 bicycle-motor crashes to creep higher before it further protects its cyclists.
