Inadequate insurance coverage could leave a motorcyclist's family devastated after a serious wreck, warns Dirk J. Derrick, Esq. Joined by Pearl Carey, on the firm's professional staff, Dirk covers South Carolina's motorcycle licensing rules and helmet law, when underinsured motorist coverage can be stacked across household vehicles for greater protection, how public perceptions may affect how jurors evaluate a case, and how the state's comparative negligence law affects recovery. He outlines damages available in injury claims and wrongful death cases, and stresses prompt medical treatment and evidence preservation within South Carolina's three-year statute of limitations.
Dirk Derrick (00:00):
Welcome to The Legal Truth, the podcast created to provide you general legal information about South Carolina law, lawyers, and the legal process and hopefully prevent you from being surprised by the unexpected. We will answer many of the questions I've been asked during the past 35 years about South Carolina personal injury claims and workers' compensation claims. We will also discuss existing laws, proposed changes in the law, and how they affect you. My name is Dirk Derrick. I'm the founder of the Derrick Law Firm, and I'm your host.
Voiceover (00:35):
Please see required ethics disclaimers in show notes.
Pearl Carey (00:41):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Legal Truth Podcast. I'm Pearl Carey, and I'm here today with my co-host, Dirk Derrick. Thanks for being here, Dirk. And today we're here to discuss the truth about motorcycle accidents in South Carolina.
(00:54):
So Dirk, let's start at the beginning. What does someone actually have to do to legally ride a motorcycle in South Carolina?
Dirk Derrick (01:01):
Well, you have to get your mama's permission. No, you actually don't have to do that. I always wanted a motorcycle growing up and my mother said no. So I didn't get one growing up. We had mini bikes but didn't have the kind you could ride on the road. Motorcycle accidents are a little bit different than car wrecks. You have to have an endorsement on your driver's license or a motorcycle driver's license by itself in South Carolina. So you have to go get that specific license to be able to have one. You can't just buy a motorcycle, get on the road. So you have to go through that training and that exercise. But other than that, you have to insure it just like a car. You have to put the same 25,000 coverage as the minimum limits in South Carolina. So you have to get a special license and you have to insure it before you drive it.
Pearl Carey (01:46):
Makes sense. And so, does South Carolina have a helmet law regarding motorcycles?
Dirk Derrick (01:50):
They do. If you're under 21 years of age, you have to wear a helmet. 21 and above is optional. As an attorney who handles these cases all the time, I would say, please wear a helmet. If you have a helmet on, I have a better chance of representing you instead of your family. There's some bad injuries happen in motorcycle wrecks and head injuries are very, very normal in a motorcycle wreck. That's why I didn't have a helmet on. Helmet doesn't totally prevent it, but it really is a injury that happens a lot in motorcycle wrecks.
Pearl Carey (02:19):
So regarding insurance for a motorcycle, is there anything special or different in terms of how South Carolina handles insurance?
Dirk Derrick (02:27):
No, it's the same thing. South Carolina, we have minimum limits where you have to put $25,000, let's say liability. If you cause somebody's injury, $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 in property damage to the other person if you caused the wreck. And motorcycle insurance requirements are the same as car insurance requirements. You have to carry at least the minimum limits in South Carolina. Liability coverage is the coverage that covers somebody else if you hurt them. In South Carolina, you got to carry $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage in a wreck, that much coverage. In South Carolina, it's mandatory that they will add uninsured motorist coverage on your policy in the amount of your liability coverage. You got to have at least 25, 50, 25. Usually raise it with the limits of your liability coverage. What that covers you for is if someone hits you, hurts you, or hurts a passenger and they don't have any insurance.
(03:28):
In South Carolina, we also have underinsured motorist coverage. That's when somebody has insurance, but nut enough to pay for your damages. That's underinsured motorist coverage or UIM coverage. It's not mandatory, but it is mandatory that they make you a meaningful offer of that coverage and give you a chance to buy it. That is a very cheap coverage to buy and a very important coverage to buy because $25,000... And when I say 25, 50, 25, if somebody's driving a vehicle with that coverage and they hit you and your family, you're riding in the car, your wife, your two kids in the back, and they hurt y'all. If they have 25, 50, 25, the minimum limits, the most they got to pay any one person in your car for the bodily injury is $25,000. And that can be eaten up immediately at the emergency room. The most they have to pay your whole family is $50,000.
(04:21):
And the most they have to pay for your property damage, your car, your vehicle is $25,000. So that is really in today's world, a very low amount of coverage. So I always recommend to my clients once they come in, go out and buy underinsured motorist coverage. What that does is that gives you coverage that if they hit you at 25, 50, 25, and if you have purchased underinsured motorist coverage, when their insurance runs out, you can apply to your insurance. That underinsured motorist coverage, what people find out is if they will increase their value, their limits of their liability coverage, let's say the 250, 500,000 instead of 25, 50,000, you can do the same thing with underinsured motorist coverage. So now if someone hits you, you'll have $250,000 per person, $500,000 per accident, and $250,000 for property damage and punitive damages. Now, the biggest reason people don't buy that is they want to spend as little as possible on insurance because it's never going to happen to them.
(05:29):
We are all born, I think, with something that nobody's going to hurt us. We're not going to be the victim of a wreck. And then when it happens, it's too late to go back and transform your policy for that particular incident. But what people don't understand is the majority of your cost of your insurance is that first 25, 50, 25 because it's a lot on the vehicle, the property damage. And a lot of times, and they think, "Well, I can't go from 25, 50 to 250, 500. That's 10 times as much. And that would cost me 10 times as much. I can't pay that much on insurance." Well, the truth is, if you go compare insurance companies, a lot of times you can get 10 times the coverage with only one-tenth the increase. So think about it. If you're paying $500 every six months for minimum limits, you may be able to get 10 times that coverage and underinsured motorist coverage for 550 every six months. The amount of coverage you have there is just unbelievable compared to getting the minimum limits.
(06:35):
And in South Carolina, another good thing about it is you can stack the coverage on the different vehicles in your household, which means if I have 250, 500 on the car I'm driving, my wife has a car, my teenage son has a car. If a wreck occurs, I can stack all that coverage for that wreck on the UIM coverage, which means now I got $750,000 per person in addition to the amount of liability of the person who caused my damages. So, very cheap. They have to make you an offer of that coverage, underinsured motorist coverage. They have to get you to sign off that you don't want it. And the reason the State makes them do it is because it's such a good deal. They want you to have the opportunity to reject it.
(07:24):
And so my opinion, especially it's across the board with cars, too, but if you're driving a motorcycle, please get underinsured motorist coverage because motorcycle accident victims, people who are on motorcycles, their damages are very, very often much worse than cars.
Pearl Carey (07:45):
Absolutely. So having the proper coverage is of the utmost importance when it comes to riding a motorcycle or driving a motorcycle.
Dirk Derrick (07:50):
Absolutely. Or you'll have a conversation with me or another attorney and you will say, "They only had $25,000 insurance and my bills are a million dollars. Well, that's not fair." I'm telling you it's not fair. But that conversation goes on way too many times because people do not protect themselves with their insurance coverage.
Pearl Carey (08:12):
Absolutely. And so, how do the rules for motorcycles differ from the rules or the laws for cars?
Dirk Derrick (08:18):
It's really the same rules. It's very similar. I think that the one rule I can think that you can't do as a car, you can't ride two cars together down one lane. The law does allow motorcyclists to ride two by two in the lanes. But other than that, you abide by the same laws. You're responsible for the same safety laws. There's really no difference.
Pearl Carey (08:40):
And regarding motorcycles, are there any other rules that riders should generally know about?
Dirk Derrick (08:45):
One thing different about a motorcycle is they've got to have running headlights that run all the time. From a visibility standpoint, their headlights stay on all the time. It's got to be on day or night just to help people see them.
Pearl Carey (08:59):
Absolutely. In your experience, what are the main causes of motorcycle accidents on the road?
Dirk Derrick (09:05):
Well, going back to the previous question is people not seeing people on a motorcycle is the number one reason that people give when there's a motorcycle wreck, I believe from my experience. And you think about it, if you have blind spots where you miss an entire car, missing a motorcycle is easier. Now, I do believe motorcycles most of the time make more noise so you can hear them if you have a quiet cab that you're driving. But the main reason people give is I didn't see them. I didn't see them. I do not believe people have the fear of turning in front of a motorcycle like they do turning in front of a Mack truck. They realize a motorcyclist has to slow down or they're going to get the worst end of the deal. And I do believe people will turn in front of a motorcycle faster than they will large truck or vehicle because they don't fear them as much.
(09:53):
And maybe they can't judge the speed of them, but I think that's a problem. I think people will turn in front of motorcycles. They will change lanes in front of motorcycles. I think really if you're riding a motorcycle on the road, you really got to be... You got to drive defensively because unfortunately there's some people who won't respect the fact that you're out there, you're uncovered. So I think some disrespect for motorcycles and thinking that the motorcyclists will drive defensively all the time leads to some wrecks. I think the third thing I would say is some motorcyclists driving aggressively leads to wrecks. Just because they can change lanes and go around traffic faster than a car, they can jump through some small areas. That goes back to cars not seeing them and not expecting that they don't make lane changes and do things as quickly as they do, I think is a problem. And it may be entirely legal for them to do that, but the driver of the vehicle did not expect it and did not see it.
(10:56):
I think the final cause of motorcycle wrecks that's a little different than car wrecks are the road defect cases, pothole, uneven lanes. There can be some problems on roads that cars can handle and cause problems with motorcyclists. The main wrecks we see is inattention, distraction, inability to see motorcyclists, or failure to see a motorcyclist are the main causes.
Pearl Carey (11:25):
So when you actually try one of these motorcycle cases in court, what are the damages issues that come up?
Dirk Derrick (11:32):
Unfortunately, these wrecks cause catastrophic injuries and death. So we are from day one trying to preserve all the evidence so that we can prove the liability, what happened, whether there's any recklessness on the part of the other driver from day one while we investigate the insurance coverage, collectability of how much can we collect if the damages requires it, and then how much we can collect if the damages support it. And then we start working up the damages. Damages are same as a car wreck. You're entitled to medical expenses, both past and future. If you can show that somebody's going to have future, just based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty, they might have future medicals. We work up life care plans to show how much those medicals will cost in the future. You also have lost wages, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, all the same factors if the motorcycle rider survives.
(12:31):
If he or she does not survive and it becomes a wrongful death case, the damages are calculated differently. You actually... In a wrongful death case, you have two claims. You have the survival claim, which is medical bills, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, everything while the motorcyclist survived after the wreck, if he or she survived at all. And then if they pass away, you have a wrongful death case. And that wrongful death damage is the mental damages and the loss of a family member to the close family members. So you measure it from their loss, not the motorcyclist's loss, if that makes sense. They say wrongful death that you're trying to evaluate someone's life, but it's really not evaluating a life. It's evaluating the damages that that loss of life has caused his or her closest family members.
Pearl Carey (13:25):
Absolutely. And so previously we kind of touched on this, but how does public perception and bias against motorcycle riders impact a personal injury case?
Dirk Derrick (13:35):
Before we started doing a bunch of jury research and focus groups, I'd have told you it was more than I have found it to be. My 91-year-old mother believes that if you get on a highway on a motorcycle, you're asking somebody to hit you. I love her, but if I had a motorcycle case, I wouldn't put on my jury. She just, "Why would you do that? Why would you drive a motorcycle on the highway?" But overall, what we have found, and there's people like that, there's people who think that you're kind of assuming the risk when you get on the road with a motorcycle, but it's not as many people as I thought it was going to be before I started doing the jury research.
(14:13):
Most people understand you have the right to be there. Most people understand that you have the same rights and they're not going to punish you for being on a motorcycle. When we build those cases, we build in the time to show that you were doing everything right. You were one of those good motorcycle riders who was not driving aggressively, speeding, doing anything out of the ordinary because that kind of conduct can stigmatize or can bring out some biases on the part of the jury.
(14:45):
We have two or three motorcycle rallies here in Myrtle Beach every year. And so the people who live here deal with them. We drive with them. We have driven with motorcycle riders who are obeying the law, going the speed limit, being careful. And we have ridden with motorcyclists who are flying around people speeding and shooting way ahead. And we've seen both types of motorcycle riders. And so when we're building a case, we really want to build it to put you in the category of the people that the jury has seen who are obeying the law while they're on a motorcycle, if that makes sense. We're trying to put you in that camp and keep you out of the other camp.
Pearl Carey (15:26):
This kind of plays into my next question. So how does not wearing a helmet impact a personal injury claim, especially considering they're optional over the age of 21 in South Carolina?
Dirk Derrick (15:37):
Same thing. There's some people to say if you didn't wear a helmet, even though the law says you don't have to, that you should have. And that's just, they're going to say it. If you end up with a TBI and you don't have a helmet on, there's going to be a group of people who say that. There's a group of people who say, no, he had a legal right not to wear it and it's not his fault if it's the other person's fault. And I can't tell you the percentage off the top of my head, but there's people who believe that strongly both ways. It has a good possibility to hold down the damages you can get from anything to do with your head injury no matter what the law is and no matter what the judge tells them. Jurors, we have found there's a lot of doing what they want to do and a lot of confirmation bias where they make up their mind how they undo it and then they justify it with whatever law they want to justify it with.
(16:26):
But I would tell you that if you put 12 people in a jury box, some people in that jury room will treat a motorcyclist wearing a helmet different than a motorcyclist not wearing a helmet.
Pearl Carey (16:36):
And so how does the comparative fault system in South Carolina work in practice for a motorcycle rider?
Dirk Derrick (16:41):
It's the same thing as a car. It's comparative negligence in South Carolina. We have the kind of comparative negligence that says the plaintiff can't be more than 50% at fault. How it works is the jury, if an allegation is made that the motorcyclist did something wrong and it's almost always made by the defense attorney, the jury decides defendant, the person we brought the action against, did they do something negligent? And did it contribute to the plaintiff's injuries? And if they say yes, they look at the plaintiff's conduct and say, did the plaintiff do anything negligent? And did that negligence contribute to the injuries? If they say yes to both sides, then they divide up the responsibility and they put a percentage on the defendant and a percentage on the plaintiff. If they put no percentage on the plaintiff, if they say the plaintiff didn't do anything wrong, whatever damages they come up with, let's say they came up with a million dollars, the plaintiff would be awarded a million dollars. If there's coverage and collectability and insurance coverage or a way to collect that money, you'd get a verdict for a million dollars.
(17:48):
If they say, "Well, we think the plaintiff was 10% at fault," they're still supposed to come up with the damages, let's say a million dollars, but then they put 10% on the plaintiff so the judge would reduce that million dollars by 10% and the plaintiff would be given a verdict for $900,000. If however, they put more fault on the plaintiff than the defendant. Let's say they say the damages are a million dollars, but we think that the plaintiff is 60% at fault and the defendant is 40% at fault, in South Carolina because the plaintiff is now more than the defendant, the plaintiff gets nothing. It is not a true comparative state. So if the defendant can show that the motorcyclist was more than 50% at fault, then the verdict would be zero.
(18:37):
That is not as good as true comparative. So if the plaintiff is 90% at fault and the defendant is 10% at fault, you're still entitled to 10% of the damages. In North Carolina, however, they have the same law that we had in South Carolina when I got out of law school back when we rode horses to the courthouse. It's called contributory negligence. If the plaintiff is 1% at fault, he or she gets nothing. So the defendant can be 99% at fault. If the plaintiff's 1% at fault, they get nothing. So our system is a split between true comparative and contributory. We'd rather have pure comparative, but if they put more than 50% on the motorcyclist, he or she gets nothing.
Pearl Carey (19:20):
Got you. And so what should a motorcycle rider do and not do directly after a crash or an incident occurs?
Dirk Derrick (19:28):
If you're injured, get medical treatment. The doctors tell you to do something, do it. If the doctor tells you to go to these six appointments, go to them. From an investigative standpoint, get somebody to investigate your case quickly. With modern technology, there's so many things we can get if we get involved early on, we can acquire that really helps us prove what happened in a case. Most cars nowadays have black box and they have data in them where we can see what their speed was, were they're speeding up, were they're hitting the brakes, what they were doing the last four or five seconds before the wreck. Very important to prove cases. Also, if we get involved early enough, we can get on the road or the street and look for Ring cameras or surveillance cameras to prove what happened. But those things, they write over themselves. So if you don't get involved quickly, you can lose that evidence.
(20:24):
So from a proving the case, we love to get involved early so we can investigate early. We can put private investigators to go out and talk to eyewitnesses while they still are in the area. In Myrtle Beach area, these people come for one week and go back home. So if there's any way we can talk to witnesses while they're down here, it's great that we could lock down the evidence to be able to prove your case later down the road if we need them. So preserve anything you can. Get names of witnesses if anyone said they saw something. Get someone to investigate your case as fast as possible. Whether you get us or some other firm, get an attorney involved so they can preserve evidence to help you get medical treatment and then do what your doctors tell you to do.
(21:09):
Losing evidence because we don't get involved early in a matter is very disappointing. When we get involved later on and we don't have surveillance and we don't have things that could have been preserved, it's frustrating because we know if we had it, the case would be so much easier to prove. And when we focus group these cases at night, jurors expect everything to be on videotape. Why didn't we see the surveillance? Why we didn't see that? There's cameras on that road, businesses on that road. Why didn't you show us videos and surveillance? And we have to tell them when we got involved late and everything was gone. We send people out and try to preserve that when we get hired, but if it's not preserved earlier, you lose it.
(21:47):
The second most frustrating thing in trying to help somebody and maximize the recovery is them not doing what their doctor tells them to do. It is a very hard sell to go in front of a jury and say, "My client was hurt. They're still suffering from it. They're going to suffer from this from here on out or for however long the doctor says they're going to suffer from it." But then the defense lawyer stands up and say, "Hey, this person didn't even do what the doctor told them to do. He didn't even try to get help. They want you to pay him for pain and suffering. The doctor told them to go to eight appointments and he went to two. He didn't even try to help himself. How bad was he injured if he didn't do what the doctor told him to do?" Not doing what your doctors tell you to do, missing appointments, those things just hurt your case badly. And a lot of people have good excuses.
(22:35):
A lot of people say, I got to go to work. I can't take a half a day off twice a week for 12 weeks to go get this treatment. I understand that's life, but I also understand that it definitely hurts people's cases. That's not a hard sell for the defense to put on the plaintiff. And the plaintiffs often think they can come in and I'll explain myself, I'll explain myself. There will be pro-defense jurors most of the time on a jury and all they're looking for is something to hang their hat on to get a defense verdict or hold down the verdict. There's people who just don't want to give awards. And any of those things that the plaintiff does is just, I mean, that's what they'll latch onto. We see them over and over and over in the jury research room going, "Y'all, he didn't go to the doctor. Y'all, he didn't do what the doctor told him to do." And they just hold the verdict down.
Pearl Carey (23:31):
Absolutely. So it's just really important if a motorcycle rider is to get in a wreck, that they get help immediately and that they listen to their doctors.
Dirk Derrick (23:39):
Correct.
Pearl Carey (23:40):
Dirk, do you have any final comments about motorcycle accidents in South Carolina to add?
Dirk Derrick (23:45):
The only thing I would add is there's a three-year statute of limitations in motor vehicle accidents in South Carolina. You got three years to bring the case, but you don't want to wait three years. Like I said, preservation of evidence, preservation of medical proof, all that stuff needs to be attacked earlier. You can have a situation where somebody... And I'm going to tell you, most times somebody calls me two and a half years or two years, nine months after an incident, they got to have a good excuse why they've waited so long or we're not going to get involved in it because we can't build the case. It's just, you can't go back two and a half years. You just lose so much evidence. It's very important to get involved earlier, but you do have a three-year statute of limitation.
(24:28):
And the final thing I'll say, the same thing I've talked about earlier. In motorcycle cases, the biggest problem we see is there's not enough insurance coverage. People get hurt badly, they get killed. And then because they did not have underinsured motorist coverage and a high enough limits or didn't have any at all, there's no money to cover their damages. In the event of a wrongful death, there's no money to leave for their family to help them pay for things that that person would've paid for had they been alive. Call the Derrick Law Firm, ask to speak to me if you want to know how much coverage to get. But please, if you're going to ride a motorcycle, you really need to have enough insurance coverage that if somebody does hit you and doesn't see you, that your family's covered and they don't pay for that for the rest of their lives.
Pearl Carey (25:13):
Absolutely. That will be a sad situation.
Dirk Derrick (25:15):
Yep.
Pearl Carey (25:16):
Well, thank you so much, Dirk, for joining me today on another episode of The Legal Truth Podcast. And to our listeners, please tune in the next few weeks for another episode and we hope to see you in the next one.
Voiceover (25:33):
Thank you for joining us on The Legal Truth Podcast. If you have questions that you would like answered on a future episode, please send them to thelegaltruth@derricklawfirm.com. If you would like to speak to us directly, call us at 843-248-7486. If you find the podcast valuable, please leave us a five-star review and share The Legal Truth with your neighbor, friend, or family member who is seeking reliable information about a South Carolina personal injury or workers' compensation claim. Dirk J. Derrick of the Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers is responsible for the production of this podcast, located at 901 North Main Street, Conway, South Carolina.
(26:15):
Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers has included the information on this podcast as a service to the general public. Use of this podcast and any related materials does not in any manner constitute an attorney-client relationship between Derrick Law Firm injury lawyers and the user. While the information on this podcast is about legal issues, it is not intended as legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your particular state. Anyone seeking specific legal advice or assistance should retain an attorney. Any prior results mentioned do not guarantee a similar outcome.
(26:42):
The content reflects the personal views and opinions of the participants in the podcast and are not intended as endorsements of any views or products. This podcast could contain inaccuracies. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute legal advice and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up-to-date as laws continue to change. In this podcast, you'll hear information about focus groups. Please note that not all of the firm's cases are presented to a focus group. Additionally, when speaking about juries or jurors in relation to a focus group, we are speaking of focus group participants and not actual trial juries or jurors.