If another driver caused your motorcycle crash, you can pursue compensation for your medical bills, lost income, and pain, and Illinois generally gives you two years to file suit. That window sounds generous until an insurance company spends most of it blaming you for the crash. Riders in this city get blamed by default, and the adjuster assigned to your file already knows it.
At Herbert Rosner Connelly Law Firm, our Chicago motorcycle accident lawyer team builds claims around evidence rather than assumptions about people who ride. We handle serious injury and workers' compensation matters throughout Cook County, and we work on a contingency fee basis.
Call us today and tell us what happened.
You are not just hiring someone to send letters. You are hiring the people who will decide how your crash gets explained to an adjuster, a judge, and possibly a jury.
Daniel Q. Herbert, Adam R. Rosner, and Thomas M. Connelly built this firm around personal injury and workers' compensation work for people in Chicago communities. Motorcycle claims reward preparation. We treat yours as a case that may be tried, because that is what changes an insurer's math.
Our published settlements reflect the severity of harm riders often face:
Past results never predict a future one. What they show is the level of injury and the kind of well-defended opponents we are prepared to take on.
Our phones are answered around the clock, and we keep you informed rather than leaving you to chase updates. Riders come to us because insurers treat their claims as pre-judged. We treat them as provable.
We secured a $250,000 policy-limit settlement for the family of a man killed in a motorcycle crash, after locating an additional insurance policy the family did not know existed. Coverage hunting is often where a rider's case is won or lost.
With co-counsel at Cavanagh Sorich Law, we obtained a $50 million settlement for a young man catastrophically injured at a Chicago railyard. Our past case results show the range of matters we take on.
Motorcycle crashes are a small slice of Illinois traffic collisions and a large slice of the deadly ones.
According to the Illinois Department of Transportation's 2024 Crash Facts report:
A rider is far more likely to die in a collision than a driver surrounded by steel and airbags. The City of Chicago publishes its own crash records, and the Chicago Department of Transportation reviews them through its traffic safety data program.
No honest lawyer quotes a number before reviewing your medical records and the available insurance coverage. What we can tell you is what drives the range.
Two riders with identical injuries can recover very different amounts when one case has clean liability evidence, and the other does not.
Illinois lets you recover both measurable financial losses and the human costs that do not arrive with a receipt.
Economic damages include:
Non-economic damages include:
When a rider does not survive, the family's wrongful death claim is separate. Under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act, a jury may award damages for grief, sorrow, and mental suffering to a surviving spouse and next of kin, along with pecuniary losses.
Usually yes. Partial blame reduces an Illinois recovery, but it does not erase it unless your share crosses a specific line.
Under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, you are barred from recovering only if your own fault is more than 50% of the cause of your injuries. At 50% or less, your damages are reduced in proportion to your share.
So a rider found 20% at fault on a $300,000 claim recovers $240,000. A rider pushed past the 50% mark recovers nothing, which is exactly why insurers argue over percentage points.
Illinois does not require adult riders to wear helmets, and Illinois courts have rejected efforts to use helmet non-use against injured riders. If an adjuster raises your gear, we push back.
Rider injuries tend to be the kind that reshape a life: traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage, complex fractures, road rash requiring grafts, and amputations.
Insurers often value the first few months of treatment and ignore what comes after. We document the full arc of catastrophic injuries, including the surgeries, therapy, and lost independence still ahead of you.
Most Chicago rider crashes trace back to a driver who never saw the motorcycle in the first place.
Patterns we see repeatedly in this city include:
Our overview of Illinois motorcycle accident claims covers the broader statewide picture.
A few provisions of the Illinois Vehicle Code come up in nearly every rider case, usually because an insurer is trying to use one against you.
625 ILCS 5/11-1404 requires riders to use glasses, goggles, or a transparent shield, and it specifies that contact lenses do not satisfy the rule. Helmets are recommended but not mandated for adults.
625 ILCS 5/11-703 governs overtaking and passing, and it bars a two-wheeled vehicle from passing on the left of one vehicle while passing on the right of another unless an unobstructed lane is available. Riding between rows of traffic is not permitted here.
Even when a rider was filtering, the other driver's conduct can still carry the larger share of fault under the comparative fault rule above.
Beyond the at-fault driver's liability policy, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage may apply, and so may an umbrella policy or a commercial policy if a work vehicle was involved.
Proving the other driver failed to use reasonable care is an evidence project, not an argument.
We move quickly to secure:
Where liability is contested, we bring in accident reconstruction professionals to answer questions a crash report leaves open.
If you are reading this soon after a collision, these five steps protect both your health and your claim:
Two years, in most cases. 735 ILCS 5/13-202 sets a two-year limitation period for personal injury actions, and wrongful death claims generally follow the same two-year track.
One warning: when a city, county, or transit agency is a defendant, the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act imposes a shorter deadline. If a roadway defect or a public bus contributed to your crash, call us right away.
You should not have to argue with an adjuster while you are still healing. That is our job, and we would rather start it early, while the footage still exists and the witnesses still remember.
Herbert Rosner Connelly Law Firm represents injured riders and grieving families throughout Chicago from our office at 65 W Jackson Blvd. We handle motorcycle cases on a contingency fee basis, and the first conversation costs you nothing.
Call a Chicago motorcycle accident lawyer at Herbert Rosner Connelly Law Firm us today to schedule your free case evaluation.
