Motorcycle Accident Lawyers in Clarksville

The road you went down on may answer to three names

US-41A runs the length of Clarksville carrying unsigned state route numbers that change as it goes: SR-12 north of downtown, SR-13 near downtown, SR-112 to the south. US-79 does the same thing, running as SR-76 southwest of downtown and SR-13 to the northeast. In street terms that means Fort Campbell Boulevard, Madison Street and College Street are all the same US highway, and Wilma Rudolph Boulevard and Guthrie Highway are both US-79. A rider says Madison Street. The paperwork says SR-112. We reconcile the two before a single record is requested.

SR-374 answers to five different names

One arterial crosses the north of the city from US-79 in the west to US-41A in the east, and it is signed in turn as 101st Airborne Division Parkway, Warfield Boulevard, Purple Heart Parkway, Paul B. Huff Memorial Parkway and Memorial Drive. All five are SR-374. A rider who came off on Warfield and a witness who says Purple Heart are describing the same highway. Accounts that look inconsistent on paper can be nothing more than local naming, and we establish that at the outset rather than leaving it to be argued over later.

Every rider in Tennessee has to wear a helmet

Tennessee law requires motorcycle drivers and passengers to wear a helmet under T.C.A. § 55-9-302. Gear and lane position still get raised afterward as reasons to pay a rider less than the injury is worth. Establishing that you were riding lawfully and visibly takes that argument away and puts the question back where it began, on the driver who caused the wreck.

One year to file, and the evidence goes first

Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104 gives an injured rider one year from the date of the crash to bring suit, among the shortest periods in the country. The second year the statute allows opens only where the at-fault driver faces criminal charges brought inside that first year. The filing date is the part that waits patiently. A motorcycle's damage pattern, the gouges in the pavement and the resting positions of both vehicles do not, and on a road without cameras they may be the entire case.

Fifty percent, and what a rider is assumed to have been doing

McIntyre v. Balentine bars recovery altogether at fifty percent fault or more and reduces it by the rider's share below that line. Riders carry assumptions into that calculation that a driver in a sedan does not, about speed, about lane position, about being difficult to see. None of it is evidence. Reconstruction built from the point of impact, the damage angles and the roadway measurements replaces the assumptions with figures, which is the only way to answer them.

Which agency holds your report is not settled by the city limits

The familiar shorthand, city police inside town and the sheriff outside it, does not describe Tennessee. The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office states plainly that Tennessee sheriffs are equally responsible to the people inside the incorporated cities of their county as to those beyond the city limits. Clarksville Police work three patrol districts, from Cunningham Lane, Commerce Street and International Boulevard. The Tennessee Highway Patrol places Montgomery County in its District Three office at Nashville, though that is an administrative assignment rather than a statement about which roads it works. We identify the investigating agency from the paperwork instead of from a map.

Wherever you were treated, the record is the claim

The hospital in Clarksville has a different name this year than it had last. The one on Dunlop Lane is Vanderbilt Clarksville Hospital, and the emergency department out on North Highway 76 is Vanderbilt Emergency Sango, both under Vanderbilt Health since February. Treatment given before that change is still on file, and a records request just has to use the name the hospital goes by now. What we assemble is the full course of the injury, from the first response through the surgeries and the rehabilitation still ahead, because the invoices already received are not the measure of what a rider's injury will cost.

Talk to a Clarksville motorcycle accident lawyer

If a driver's carelessness put you on the pavement in Clarksville or anywhere in Montgomery County, tell us what happened through our contact page. The first conversation costs nothing, and our fee comes out of a recovery, so there is nothing to pay while the case is being built.

Speak with a Clarksville motorcycle accident attorney

Common questions

The crash report lists a road I have never heard of. Is it even my crash?

Almost certainly it is. Clarksville streets carry route numbers as well as names, so Madison Street appears as US-41A and SR-112, Wilma Rudolph Boulevard as US-79 and SR-13, and the parkway across the north of the city as SR-374 whichever of its five names is on the sign. We reconcile the designation against the street before requesting anything.

Nobody saw it and there was no camera. Can fault still be proved?

It can be. The pavement keeps its own record. Gouges, scrapes and the spread of debris mark where the impact happened, and the damage on both machines shows the angle it came from. A reconstructionist works backward from that physical evidence to the sequence, which is why photographing the scene and preserving the motorcycle itself matter so much in the first days.

Does Tennessee's helmet law limit what I can recover?

Under T.C.A. Section 55-9-302, Tennessee requires a helmet for motorcycle drivers and passengers alike. Wearing one is compliance with the law and nothing more, and the driver who caused the crash remains responsible for the harm that followed. We establish that you were riding lawfully so the discussion stays on their conduct rather than yours.