Bicycle Intersection Accident Lawyer in Castle Rock

The Right Hook: The Most Common Fatal Cycling Crash Pattern

Picture this. You are riding straight through a green light in the bike lane. A car that was beside you or just ahead of you turns right. The driver’s front bumper crosses your path at a 90-degree angle. You slam into the side of a turning vehicle at full riding speed with zero warning. That is the right hook.

The majority of auto-cyclist collisions in Colorado occur either at an intersection or immediately adjacent to it. Two fatal types of these incidents include the “right hook” (the driver makes a right-hand turn into the path of the cyclist) and the “left cross” (an oncoming driver makes a left-hand turn through the cyclist’s lane). Under Colorado Revised Statutes C.R.S. § 42-4-1412, bicycles are defined as vehicles and have all the same rights and responsibilities as automobiles when navigating intersections. If a motorist has violated the right-of-way of a cyclist, the motorist will be liable for negligence per se. In Colorado, a plaintiff can recover damages in a personal injury claim if they were no greater than 49% responsible for the incident; this is due to Colorado’s modified comparative fault statute (C.R.S. § 13-21-111). Rampart Injury Lawyers prepares each of its bicycle cases involving crashes occurring at intersections for litigation.

The “right hook” is the most common fatal bicycle accident type. The mechanics of this type of accident are very basic yet extremely dangerous. The cyclist is traveling in a straight line through one of the lanes on the right side of the turning vehicle. As the vehicle is turning, the driver checks their left rearview mirror for approaching traffic, sees an opening and makes the turn. The driver never checks their right rearview mirror nor looks back over their right shoulder. The cyclist, who was not visible in the driver’s thought process while making the decision to make the turn, is then struck by the turning vehicle and the curb.

Why do drivers fail to see cyclists who are right beside them? The answer comes from neuroscience. Researchers call it inattentional blindness. The human brain processes visual information through pattern recognition. A driver approaching an intersection is scanning for car-shaped and truck-shaped objects. A bicycle presents a narrower visual profile, a different speed signature, and occupies a different spatial position than what the driver’s brain expects. The brain literally filters the cyclist out of conscious awareness. The driver looked. They saw. But their brain did not register the bicycle as a relevant object.

This is the same phenomenon documented in motorcycle left-turn crashes, where researchers at the University of Nottingham and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that drivers’ failure to see motorcycles was perceptual, not visual. The eyes received the information. The brain discarded it. In traffic safety literature, it is called “Looked But Failed To See” (LBFTS). It accounts for the majority of car-versus-bicycle intersection crashes (NHTSA Bicycle Safety).

The Left Cross: When the Oncoming Driver Turns Through Your Lane

The left cross is the intersection mirror image of the right hook. An oncoming driver turns left. The cyclist, traveling straight in the opposite direction, enters the intersection with the right of way. The driver misjudges the cyclist’s speed, distance, or existence entirely, and turns directly into the cyclist’s path.

Left-cross collisions are similar in cause to right-hook collisions; both have the same root cause of how the driver’s brain is processing information about distance and speed. Bicycles approaching at 15-20 mph appear to be farther away than they actually are as the driver’s brain has already estimated the distance between itself and the cyclist based on the size of the object (car vs bicycle) approaching the driver at car-sized speeds. By the time the driver realizes that the cyclist is close enough to enter into the turn, the driver is already committed to the turn and will make contact with the cyclist at full speed or the turning vehicle will strike the cyclist from the side, delivering the full impact force to the cyclist’s body.

At 20 mph of approach speed, a collision with a turning vehicle delivers roughly 25,000 joules of kinetic energy to the cyclist’s body. This amount of energy is sufficient to shatter the pelvis, rupture the spleen or cause severe traumatic brain injury.

Colorado Law at the Intersection

Bicycles are treated by Colorado’s traffic code as motor vehicles. When bicycling, a bicycle rider has all the rights and obligations under C.R.S. § 42-4-1412. as does a vehicle driver on the roadway. If a bicyclist is proceeding through an intersection with the right-of-way or a green signal (in the absence of other traffic control devices), then the bicyclist has the same right-of-way protections afforded to a vehicle driver in the same position at the intersection. A driver that makes a right-hand turn or a left-hand turn across a bicyclist’s path of travel has violated the bicyclist’s right-of-way just as much as if he/she were making a turn into an oncoming vehicle.

A driver of a motor vehicle is required to maintain at least a distance of three feet from the person riding a bicycle when passing the bicyclist, as defined in C.R.S. § 42-4-1002. In a right-hand hook type accident, the driver of the motor vehicle is typically within three feet of the bicyclist immediately prior to initiating the turn. This failure to pass the bicyclist with sufficient space to do so is a separate violation of statute that occurs independently of the act of turning. Therefore, there are two separate and distinct statutory violations that occur as part of a single crash.

In addition to the liability of a motorist for damages resulting from their negligent acts causing personal injuries to bicyclists, C.R.S. § 42-4-1402.5 provides for increased penalties for those convicted of reckless driving that results in serious physical harm or death to a bicyclist. The inclusion of the Vulnerable Road User statute in the claim for damages provides additional support to the argument that the state of Colorado recognizes the extreme vulnerability of bicyclists in the exact types of accidents that result from the actions of motorists that fail to exercise reasonable care.

The Safety Stop Law and Intersection Liability

Colorado’s Safety Stop Law (HB 22-1028) allows cyclists aged 15 and older to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs. Defense attorneys will twist this law to argue that the cyclist “ran a stop sign” or “ran a red light.” This argument misrepresents what the law actually says. A cyclist who approaches a stop sign, yields to traffic with the right of way, and proceeds is following the law. A cyclist who approaches a red light, stops, ensures the intersection is clear, and proceeds is following the law. The Safety Stop is not permission to blow through intersections. It is a recognition that stopping from bicycle speed and restarting consumes significant energy and creates instability, and that a yield-based approach is safer when executed properly.

If you were exercising a Safety Stop when a driver hit you, the defense must prove that you failed to yield or failed to stop as the law requires. If you yielded at a stop sign and a driver blew through the same intersection, or if you stopped at a red light and proceeded when it was clear only to be struck by a speeding driver, the Safety Stop law protects your conduct. We build the evidence to prove it.

Where Intersection Bicycle Crashes Happen on the I-25 Corridor

Intersection cycling crashes concentrate where high vehicle volume meets inadequate bicycle infrastructure. Along the I-25 corridor, these intersections have the highest crash frequency for cyclists:

•The intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Colfax Avenue is one of the most heavily traveled intersections in the state. Heavy traffic of multi-lane roadways converge with heavy bicycle commuter traffic to areas such as Cheesman Park and City Park. Therefore, it creates an environment of heavy right-hook crash occurrences throughout the evening commute period.

•Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue have high-speed arterial traffic and low levels of bicycle infrastructure and high volumes of commercial vehicle traffic. Left-cross crashes with trucks and delivery vehicles occur regularly.

•Powers Boulevard and Woodmen Road has a suburban arterial design with wide turn radii and high speeds; and little to no cyclist visibility. This type of design allows for high-speed right turns that can cause any cyclist in the shoulder or bike lane to be hit by the turning driver.

•Academy Boulevard and Austin Bluffs Parkway has four-lane arterial traffic with high volumes of university related cycling traffic due to University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). Drivers making left-hand turns across oncoming cyclist traffic create left-cross exposures.

•I-25 frontage road crossing locations (Castle Rock, Monument, Larkspur) – Local roads intersecting with on-ramp and off-ramp traffic merge with cyclists creating conflict points with poor visibility and high speed differences. The Plum Creek Trail crossing in Castle Rock is particularly concerning.

•Lucent Boulevard and County Line Road (Highlands Ranch) – Trail-to-road transition point where the Highlands Ranch Trail System crosses major arterials forces cyclists into intersection conflicts with turning vehicles.

Denver alone reported 178 bicycle crashes in 2024 (Denver Open Data Catalog). The majority occurred at intersections, during daylight hours, in clear weather. Driver inattention, not poor visibility or bad weather, is the primary cause.

Evidence That Proves an Intersection Bicycle Crash

Intersection cases live or die on the evidence gathered in the first 72 hours. Here is what a trial-ready investigation secures:

• Traffic Camera Footage: Most of Colorado’s intersections are equipped with either CDOT traffic cameras, red-light cameras, or local surveillance systems. Typically, this video will overwrite itself anywhere from 48 hours to 72 hours after it has been recorded. Therefore, if you want that video preserved, your preservation notice needs to be issued by day one, not by day five, nor by day ten – by day one.

•Signal Timing/Phase Data: All of the traffic signals in Colorado have a computer system that controls them. These computers record the timing and phases of each signal. They record which direction received a green light, for how long the green lights were displayed, and when the phase changes occurred. This information is used to determine if the bicyclist received a green light, and if the motorist made a turn during a protected or a permissive phase. The municipalities that operate the traffic engineering departments control the records for the timing and phases of their respective traffic signals.

•GPS/Cycling App Data: Your Strava, Garmin, Wahoo, and/or Apple Watch cycling applications track your speed, location, and route as you ride. In addition to providing proof that the bicyclist did not ride into the intersection at an excessive rate of speed, the GPS and/or cycling application data also provide proof that the bicyclist followed the rules of the road, such as stopping at the stop signs before entering the intersection. The GPS and/or cycling application data can show where the bicyclist was located at a particular time, what his/her speed was at that time, and the path he/she took through the intersection.

•Vehicle Event Data Recorder (EDR): Virtually all modern vehicles are equipped with an EDR that captures a variety of data for up to 5 seconds prior to a crash, including speed, brake application, throttle position, and steering angle. As an example, if the motorist claims that he/she applied the brakes prior to crashing into the bicyclist, but the EDR does not capture any brake pedal input, the case for liability becomes much stronger. The vehicle should be saved and secured prior to any repairs being done to the vehicle, or prior to the vehicle being scrapped.

•Witness Statements: There are likely multiple witnesses to many intersections, including pedestrians waiting to cross the street, motorists traveling in adjacent lanes, bicyclists riding behind you, and employees working for businesses located near the intersection with storefronts that face the intersection. To maximize the potential value of witness statements, same-day canvassing of the area surrounding the intersection is essential to obtain accurate and reliable witness statements prior to the memories of the witnesses being reconstructed.

•Accident Reconstruction: When there are catastrophic or fatal accidents at intersections, a biomechanical and accident reconstruction expert uses various methods, including examining the rest positions of the occupants of the vehicles involved, analyzing the debris field resulting from the collision, and studying the patterns of damage to the vehicles involved to recreate the sequence of events leading up to the collision. Accident reconstruction can help resolve conflicting accounts of the events leading up to the collision by using physical evidence and witness statements.

How Insurance Companies Fight Intersection Bicycle Cases

Injuries in Intersection Bicycle Crashes

Intersection crashes can result in virtually all types of severe bicyclist injuries. Due to the nature of a broadside impact, when the cyclist’s body takes the force of the impact, it does so through the torso, pelvis, and lower extremities:

•Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): TBI is the number one cause of death in bicycle crashes. Cyclists typically strike the front of the vehicle (the hood) followed by an impact with the pavement. The combination of rapid deceleration and acceleration creates Diffuse Axonal Injuries (DAI) which a helmet may lessen but will never completely prevent.

•Pelvic/Hip Fractures: The vehicle bumper impacts the cyclist at hip level. Acetabular fractures, pubic rami fractures, and hip dislocations are all surgically repaired requiring several months of recovery time.

•Lower Extremity Fractures: A vehicle to leg impact results in femur fractures, tibial plateau fractures and knee ligament disruptions.

•Spinal Cord Injuries: The rotational forces of a broadside intersection crash can create thoracolumbar spine fractures and spinal cord injuries; these injuries are both life altering and can provide seven figure damage awards.

•Internal Organ Injuries: Compressive forces from the vehicle impacting the cyclists abdomen can lead to ruptured spleens, lacerated livers, and kidney contusions.

The non-economic caps for HB 24-1472 in Colorado will be as follows: $1,500,000 per person for personal injury claims and $2,125,000 per person for wrongful death claims starting January 1, 2025. All economic losses, such as future medical bills, loss of earning potential, and on-going rehabilitation, have no limit.

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Insurance Coverage for Intersection Bicycle Crashes

The at-fault driver’s auto liability insurance is the primary source of recovery. Colorado’s minimum requirements ($25,000/$50,000/$15,000 under C.R.S. § 10-4-619) are woefully inadequate for catastrophic intersection injuries. A single femur fracture with surgical fixation can exceed $25,000 in medical bills alone.

Your own UM/UIM coverage (C.R.S. § 10-4-609) provides additional recovery when the at-fault driver is uninsured or underinsured. This coverage applies to you as a cyclist, not just when you are inside a motor vehicle. If you carry $100,000 in UM/UIM on your own auto policy, that coverage follows you onto the bicycle.

MedPay on your auto policy covers medical expenses regardless of fault. If the intersection design itself contributed to the crash, a claim against the municipality under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act may be available, but the 182-day notice deadline under C.R.S. § 24-10-109 is absolute.

Frequently Asked Questions: Intersection Bicycle Accidents

Who has the right of way at an intersection when a bicycle and a car conflict?

Under C.R.S. § 42-4-1412, bicycles are vehicles. The same right-of-way rules that apply to cars apply to cyclists. A cyclist with a green light or who is traveling straight through an intersection has the right of way over a turning vehicle. A driver who turns across a cyclist’s path violates the cyclist’s right of way.

What is a right-hook bicycle accident?

A right hook occurs when a motor vehicle turns right at an intersection and cuts across a cyclist who is traveling straight in a bike lane or on the right side of the road. The driver fails to check their right-side mirror or blind spot, and the cyclist is struck by the turning vehicle or pinned between the vehicle and the curb. It is the most common fatal crash pattern for cyclists at intersections.

Can I sue if I was hit while making a Safety Stop at an intersection?

Yes. Colorado’s Safety Stop Law (HB 22-1028) allows cyclists 15 and older to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs. If you followed the law by yielding at a stop sign or stopping and then proceeding at a red light, and a driver struck you, the driver bears fault for failing to exercise due care. GPS and cycling app data can prove your speed and behavior at the intersection.

What if the intersection had no bike lane?

The absence of a bike lane does not reduce a cyclist’s right to be on the road. Under C.R.S. § 42-4-1412, cyclists may use any road (except limited-access highways). On a road without a bike lane, the cyclist rides as far right as practicable, but “practicable” includes the full travel lane when the lane is too narrow to share safely with a motor vehicle. A driver still owes the same duty of care to a cyclist on a road without a bike lane.

What is the statute of limitations for a bicycle intersection accident in Colorado?

Three years from the date of the crash for personal injury claims under C.R.S. § 13-80-101. Two years for wrongful death claims under C.R.S. § 13-21-204. If a government entity’s intersection design contributed to the crash, the CGIA notice must be filed within 182 days (C.R.S. § 24-10-109).

How does comparative fault affect my intersection bicycle accident case?

Under C.R.S. § 13-21-111, Colorado follows a modified comparative fault system. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. If you are found 20% at fault and your damages are $500,000, you recover $400,000. But if your fault reaches 50% or more, you recover nothing. Insurance companies routinely inflate the cyclist’s fault percentage to reduce payouts. Building the evidence to prove the driver’s fault and minimize any alleged fault on your part is what trial preparation looks like.

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