San Antonio Motorcycle Accident Lawyers
Joseph R. Echavarria of JRE Injury Law is a San Antonio motorcycle accident attorney and former Bexar County prosecutor who has recovered millions and millions for injured Texans since 2007.
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A motorcycle accident is a collision between a rider and another vehicle, a fixed object, or a road hazard, and it injures people far worse than the same impact in a car because nothing sits between the rider’s body and the pavement.
The force that dents a fender can shatter a leg or cause a lasting brain injury. Riders hurt by someone else’s carelessness can pursue payment for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and future earnings.
Joseph R. Echavarria of JRE Injury Law is a San Antonio motorcycle accident attorney and former Bexar County prosecutor who has represented injured Texans since 2007.
You are probably reading this with an adjuster’s voicemail already on your phone. That call was not made to help you.
Mr. Echavarria has worked both sides of a courtroom, first as a prosecutor and now for injured riders, and clients rate the practice 5.0 stars across 343 Google reviews. These claims sit inside the broader work we do as a San Antonio personal injury lawyer, and they are the hardest to settle fairly.
When you call, you speak with your attorney, not a call center. Call (210) 272-0101 for a free case review with our San Antonio team, or tell us what happened. There is no fee unless we win.
What does a motorcycle accident lawyer do after your crash?
A motorcycle accident lawyer takes the claim off your hands: we investigate, preserve proof, document your injuries, value the losses, negotiate, and file suit when the offer does not match the harm.
Proof disappears fast. We request the peace officer’s crash report, form CR-3, through TxDOT’s crash records system, photograph the bike before it is repaired or salvaged, and keep your helmet and jacket, because their condition is evidence.
We also pull camera video before it records over itself, find witnesses, and download the event data recorder in the car that hit you, much as we do in car accident claims.
Meanwhile we arrange your chiropractic care, physical therapy, imaging and doctor visits, handle the payout on your bike, and give you a case manager you can reach by name.
What should I do right after the crash?
- Get care the same day. Take the ambulance to University Hospital or the nearest ER and report every place that hurts.
- Call 911 so San Antonio police or the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office writes a report, and get the case number.
- Photograph both vehicles, skid marks, debris, signals, the driver’s line of sight, and your gear.
- Say nothing to the other driver’s insurer and sign nothing they send you.
- Call us before you accept any check.
How long does a claim like this take?
Most resolve in six months to a year and a half, because nobody can value a case before your doctors know whether you need surgery. Suits take longer.
Do I need a lawyer, or can I settle with the insurance company myself?
You can handle it yourself, and you will almost certainly be paid less for it. The adjuster answers to a company whose profit depends on what it does not pay.
Three moves repeat. They ask for a recorded statement while you are on pain medication. A quick check arrives with a release printed on the back, before anyone knows if you need surgery. Then a doctor the insurer hired picks apart your treatment, or blames your pain on an old injury.
Riders get a fourth. Texas Transportation Code Section 661.003 requires headgear, with an exception for riders 21 and older who completed a safety course or carry qualifying medical coverage. Insurers still raise helmet use, gear and speed to shift blame, even when the injury is a broken femur.
A motorcycle accident lawyer levels that out. Edmundo “Eddie” Leandro III spent years defending insurers before joining us, so we know how the other side builds a file. When a commercial carrier is involved, its investigators reach the scene within hours, which is why commercial truck crash claims move even faster.
What does it cost to hire us?
Nothing up front. Our fee is a percentage of what we recover, so Pay Nothing Unless You Win is the whole arrangement, and the first case review is free.
What if the driver says I was partly at fault?
You can still recover as long as you are not more than 50 percent responsible, under the proportionate responsibility rules in Section 33.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Your recovery drops by your share of the blame, which is why insurers push so hard to assign you some.
Who is legally responsible when a rider gets hurt?
The person or company whose carelessness caused it is responsible. Proving that means four things: duty, they owed you care; breach, they failed at it; causation, that failure caused your injuries; and damages, the injuries cost you something.
More than one party often owes you money:
- The driver who hit you. Ordinary negligence, or negligence per se, a rule treating a safety-statute violation as proof of carelessness.
- That driver’s employer. Respondeat superior makes a company answer for what its employee does on the job.
- A manufacturer or repair shop. Products liability covers a tire, brake or steering part that failed before impact.
- A bar or restaurant. The dram shop statute, Alcoholic Beverage Code Section 2.02, reaches a business that kept serving an obviously drunk customer.
- A governmental unit. A dangerous road condition or city vehicle puts the claim under the Tort Claims Act, with far shorter deadlines.
Can more than one party be at fault?
Yes, and finding all of them often separates a claim that covers your medical bills from one that does not. Each brings its own policy.
What if the driver who hit me was working at the time?
Then the employer is on the hook alongside the driver, and the coverage is far larger than a personal auto policy. Those files also need evidence preserved early, because the employer controls the records.
How does JRE Injury Law build a rider’s case?
We build every motorcycle accident file as though it is going to a jury, because that is the only version an insurer respects. Mr. Echavarria began his career prosecuting cases in the Bexar County District Courts at the Cadena-Reeves Justice Center, where these lawsuits are filed and tried.
That means reconstruction work when fault is disputed, physicians who explain your injuries in plain language, and medical liens negotiated down so more of the settlement stays with you. Ethan L. Shaw, Of Counsel to JRE Injury Law, is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and that sits behind the file when a carrier digs in.
You also get the part clients write about most. Mr. Echavarria returns calls himself, including in the evening, and a named case manager keeps you informed from start to finish. If you cannot travel we come to your home or hospital room, and you can meet the team handling your file first.
Talk to an attorney today. Call (210) 272-0101 or send us the details and we will call you back.
Where in San Antonio do these crashes happen?
Riders get hit across San Antonio where traffic turns, merges and stops short. Claims reach us from the I-10 and Loop 410 interchange, the I-35 and Loop 410 split on the Northeast Side, US-281 at Loop 1604, and their access roads.
Surface streets produce just as many: Bandera Road, Culebra Road, Fredericksburg Road by the South Texas Medical Center, Military Drive, Broadway, and the downtown one-way grid. Add work zones, school zones at dismissal, and the I-37 frontage roads. We handle Midtown and North Central claims and the rest of Bexar County.
How much is my motorcycle accident case worth?
Nobody can quote you a number from a web page, and any firm that does is guessing. Value comes from four things: how badly you were hurt, how long treatment lasts, how fault is divided, and how much insurance exists.
That last one sets the ceiling. The state minimum is 30/60/25 under Transportation Code Section 601.072, and one ambulance ride plus one surgery can exhaust $30,000. So a motorcycle accident attorney looks for every other policy: the employer’s, the vehicle owner’s, and your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which insurers must offer and you can waive only in writing under Insurance Code Section 1952.101. The Texas Department of Insurance explains it.
| Injury profile | What moves value up or down | Typical resolution path |
|---|---|---|
| Road rash and soft-tissue strains that heal | Treatment length, gaps in care, whether liability is admitted | Settled with the carrier without suit |
| Fractures, torn ligaments, or surgery | Operative reports, hardware, permanent work restrictions | Demand package first, suit if the offer ignores the surgery |
| Brain, spinal cord, amputation, permanent disability | Life-care plan, lost earning capacity, policy limits, defendants | Suit filed, expert testimony, mediation and trial setting |
| Fatal crash | Statutory beneficiaries, the family’s loss, evidence of gross negligence | Wrongful death and survival claims under Sections 71.002 and 71.021 |
Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome; every case depends on its facts.
What damages can an injured rider recover?
State law treats each category separately:
- Past and future medical expenses, including surgery still to come
- Lost wages and lost earning capacity
- Physical pain and mental anguish, past and future
- Physical impairment, covering what you can no longer do
- Disfigurement from road rash and surgical scarring
- Loss of household services and a spouse’s loss of consortium
- Life-care costs, in-home help and home modifications
- Damage to the bike, helmet and riding gear
- Exemplary damages under Section 41.003 for gross negligence, such as a drunk driver
How are future medical costs calculated?
They come from your treating doctors and, in serious cases, a life-care planner who prices surgeries, therapy and equipment across your lifetime. Insurers fight that number hardest, so do not settle while you are still treating.
How long do I have to file my claim?
Two years from the date of the motorcycle accident, under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. A wrongful death claim runs two years from the date of death, and a child’s claim generally waits until 18.
Waiting costs you. Camera video is overwritten within days, skid marks wash away, and witnesses move.
What if a city vehicle or a bad road caused it?
Then you have far less time. The Texas Tort Claims Act requires written notice within six months under Section 101.101, and the San Antonio city charter cuts that to 90 days.
What causes most motorcycle accidents, and who is usually at fault?
The most common pattern by far is a driver turning left across a rider’s path. Federal NHTSA data shows the other vehicle was turning left in roughly four of every ten fatal crashes between a motorcycle and another vehicle. Transportation Code Section 545.152 requires a left-turning driver to yield to oncoming traffic, and violating it is strong evidence of negligence.
The rest of what we see:
- Unsafe lane changes into a lane a rider already occupies
- Drivers pulling out from a stop sign or driveway without a second look
- Distracted driving, including drivers on a phone at a green light
- Impaired driving, heaviest late at night and on weekends
- Rideshare and delivery drivers stopping short or making U-turns, the start of many Uber and Lyft claims
- Loose gravel, potholes and uneven pavement in work zones
Why do drivers say they never saw me?
Because a bike is narrow, and a driver scanning for cars looks straight through it, a failure researchers call inattentional blindness. It does not excuse the mistake.
Is lane splitting legal in Texas?
No. Transportation Code Section 545.060 requires every vehicle to stay within a single marked lane, so riding between lanes is not permitted here. If you were struck while filtering, your lane position is one fact among many, and partial fault reduces a claim rather than ending it.
What injuries do riders usually suffer?
Riders absorb everything with their bodies, so motorcycle accident injuries run more severe and heal more slowly than the same impact in a car. The ones we see most:
- Road rash and degloving, when skin is torn away on asphalt
- Fractures of the leg, wrist, collarbone and ribs
- Traumatic brain injury and concussion, even inside a helmet that did its job
- Spinal cord damage, herniated discs and paralysis
- Internal bleeding and organ damage, which can hide symptoms for a day
- Nerve damage in the shoulder and arm when a rider braces against the ground
- Amputation, including crush injuries that end in surgery later
- Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress that make riding feel impossible
Under Texas law, physical impairment is its own category of damages, separate from pain, and it matters when an injury takes away riding or work. While you focus on healing, we schedule the imaging, therapy and specialist visits.
Why do some injuries show up days later?
Adrenaline masks pain at the scene, and bleeding, swelling and disc injuries take time to develop. Go back if anything changes, because a gap in treatment is the first thing an adjuster points to.
Does anxiety afterward count as an injury?
Yes. Mental anguish is a recoverable category, and a documented diagnosis from a treating provider makes it provable instead of arguable.
What kinds of motorcycle accident cases do we handle?
We take rider claims across the full range, with the most depth where a commercial vehicle or a company driver is involved:
- Left-turn intersection collisions and failure-to-yield crashes
- Blind-spot sideswipes and unsafe lane changes on multi-lane roads
- Rear-end impacts at lights and in stopped traffic
- Hit-and-run and phantom-vehicle crashes handled through your own coverage
- Collisions with 18-wheelers, box trucks and company pickups
- Wrecks involving transit and school bus operators, including VIA Metropolitan Transit vehicles
- Delivery vans and fleet drivers, including Amazon, FedEx and grocery distribution traffic in San Antonio
- Tire, brake and component failures that put a rider down with no other vehicle
What if the driver who hit me had no insurance?
Your own uninsured motorist coverage steps into the at-fault driver’s shoes, and it covers hit-and-run wrecks too. Your carrier becomes the opposing party, which is not a claim to handle alone.
What if I was a passenger on the bike?
You almost always have a claim, against the other driver, the rider you were with, or both. Passengers are rarely assigned fault, which makes liability the simplest part of the case.
Why do injured riders hire JRE Injury Law?
Because insurers treat riders as reckless until someone proves otherwise, and an experienced motorcycle accident attorney answers that with evidence, not argument. We are a boutique practice, not a volume shop, which is why clients name the person handling their case in reviews. Pay Nothing Unless You Win, and the consultation is free.
Who will actually handle my case?
Mr. Echavarria has practiced as a personal injury attorney since 2007, and he works your file and returns your calls himself. A named case manager keeps you updated between those calls.
Do you handle cases in Spanish?
Yes. Our team serves Spanish-speaking clients and their families every week, and we handle calls, meetings and paperwork in Spanish.
Talk to an attorney today about your San Antonio crash
Call (210) 272-0101 or toll-free (844) 702-0350, day or night, or send us your details. A San Antonio motorcycle accident lawyer will review what happened, tell you honestly whether you have a claim, and explain what comes next. The consultation is free and you Pay Nothing Unless You Win. Evidence and deadlines run out, so the sooner we start the more of your case we can protect.
