• Skip to main content

Levinson and Stefani Injury Lawyers

Client-first legal representation for injury victims. Injured? Free Consultation:

(312) 376-3812

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Attorneys
      • Ken Levinson
      • Jay Stefani
      • Vanessa A. Gebka
    • Practice Areas
      • Truck Crashes
      • Bus Collisions
      • Auto Accidents
      • Child Injuries
  • Firm News
  • Library
    • Articles
    • Cases
    • Law
    • Video
  • Blog
  • For Lawyers
    • Focus Groups
  • Free Case Review

Bicycle Safety Tips

Is There Insurance Coverage if a Divvy Bike is Involved in a Crash?

June 26, 2019 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

One of the first things an attorney does when investigating a case involving injuries is determining who is responsible for what happened. This week a 32-year-old man was struck by a hit-and-run driver that was traveling westbound along the 400 block of Grand Avenue after 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Police are still searching for the motorist that was seen on surveillance footage traveling quickly past the cyclist before striking him off camera. From the video, it appears that the car was speeding. The man is critically injured.

Supposing this irresponsible motorist is not caught, what recourse does the injured bicyclist or his family have in paying for medical bills, lost wages, and other damages? Isn’t that what insurance is for? Illinois law does require motorists to carry uninsured motorist coverage in case they are injured in a crash by an uninsured driver. This type of insurance is meant to cover you and your whole household even if you, your spouse, or a child are walking or riding a bike. If an injury is caused by an uninsured driver or by a hit-and-run driver, you should file a claim with your car insurance company.

What if I don’t own a car?

Suppose you are living green in Chicago. You don’t have any drivers in your household. You take ride share services, taxis, bicycles, scooters, roller-skates, or just your walking shoes to get from point A to point B. I imagine the savings would be astronomical when you take a car, gas, and maintenance out of your monthly budget. But then what happens if a negligent driver causes you to get hurt when you are riding a Divvy bike, for instance?

Does Divvy have its own insurance policy?

No. Divvy doesn’t operate like a rental car company that gives its customers the option of purchasing insurance with their rental. In fact, the Divvy website has a pretty extensive limited liability and indemnification agreement in their terms of use.  Whether or not those provisions will hold up in court is another issue. But what about insurance coverage? There may be other sources of coverage that apply. If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having been injured by an uninsured driver, and you don’t have any auto coverage of your own, you should contact an experienced personal injury attorney to help you investigate your options.

Should Divvy offer insurance?

Yes. Perhaps Divvy doesn’t want to add the option of purchasing insurance coverage to its business model. It’s less expensive that way. However, it may be helpful to give customers the choice considering that bicycles in Chicago share the same roads that cars, trucks, and vans use. Especially when considering that people who rely on public transportation to get around the City who aren’t covered by an auto policy could be left to pay their own medical bills if they were ever injured by a negligent driver and not due to any fault of their own.

Normally, the at-fault driver’s insurance policy is supposed to cover damages caused in a car crash. By law, Illinois has a minimum liability insurance policy requirement of $25,000. Anyone who’s been to the emergency room in the last decade will know that medical bills add up quickly. If a person has broken bones, needs a CT scan, or is hospitalized for even a short period of time, $25,000 may not be enough to even cover the initial treatment after a car crash.

This is why it’s incredibly important to spend as much as you can afford on auto coverage. The price of insurance is relatively cheap compared to the amount of coverage available, and compared to medical bills and lost wages, it’s better to have more coverage than to be in a position where the damages caused by a crash exceed the available insurance coverage limits.

For example, imagine if a man in his thirties who is married with 3 kids is walking across the street and gets tragically struck down by a car that runs a red light because the driver is either drunk, on his phone, or just not paying attention. If both the victim and the negligent driver have only $25,000 in auto insurance coverage, the family who lost their husband and father may not be able to recover more than that minimum policy amount from the at-fault driver. Only $25,000 for such an immense loss.

Similarly, if the crash was a hit-and-run, the pedestrian’s uninsured motorist coverage should apply. If the pedestrian only has $25,000 in coverage we have the same horrible circumstance. Not to say that any amount of money could replace a person, but not having enough coverage to pay medical or even funeral expenses just adds insult to injury.

The goal, of course, for any policy maker or member of the community should be to work towards a transportation system that eliminates crashes and the injuries that result from them. Until we get there, we should not leave people with no recourse just because they don’t own a car and subsequently have no reason to buy auto insurance. If Divvy doesn’t start offering insurance coverage for injuries that result from crashes, lawmakers should require it so that no one is left without options after a tragedy.

Safety Tips for Chicago Bicyclists

June 7, 2019 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Chicago’s mostly cold. Cold weather makes for hardy people who drink black coffee, eat pizza that’s really a casserole, and put hot peppers on everything. People from Illinois also know how to navigate in the snow without a dogsled. And, they don’t lose their cool when the roads are slippery, even when riding a bicycle. 

Chicago is a city that has a lot of people riding around on bicycles in all types of weather conditions, even those few weeks and months when the sun comes out of hiding. Bicycling is so popular here that Divvy, Chicago’s bicycle share program, is set to expand its coverage over the entire City by 2021. Currently, there is no service on the West Side, the Far South Side, or the Far Northwest Side. 

With even more people riding around on bikes than ever before, making sure everybody gets to their destination safely is, or at least should be everybody’s number one priority when it comes to transportation. 

There is no such thing as an accident

The word accident implies that the unfortunate or terrible thing that happened was unavoidable. A car crash is almost never an accident because a car crash is often times avoidable. Crashes occur when someone makes a poor choice. People drive drunk. They look at their phones while driving. They get behind the wheel when they haven’t had enough sleep and drive fatigued. Choices like these can lead to grave consequences especially when a car hits a bicycle.                                         

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported that 783 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes nationwide in 2017. There are steps that drivers and cyclists can take to decrease that number, if not eliminate bicycle traffic deaths altogether. 

Know the statistics

The U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations maintains statistics on traffic deathseach year. 

  • Regardless of what time of year it is, the highest percentage of bicycle deaths happen between the hours of 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. 
  • Over 70% of cyclist fatalities occur in urban as opposed to rural areas. 
  • Alcohol use was reported in 35% of fatal crashes involving bicycles.  

Get to know the rules of the road

Cyclists in Illinois are required to follow the same traffic rulesthat apply to motorists. This also means that bike riders generally have the same rights as drivers do. Drivers need to give cyclists enough space to travel safely. The Chicago Municipal Code prohibits cars from driving, standing, or parking in a bike lane. Cyclists should generally keep as far to the right as is practically possible, with a few exceptions. Both bike riders and drivers should remember that they have to share the road and that keeping a proper lookout for other travelers is paramount. 

Don’t get distracted

Distracted driving is a big problem. This applies to people riding bikes as well. Not only that, but walking around in Chicago, you’re bound to see pedestrians looking down at their phones, too. Standing on the side walk and looking at your phone may be excusable, if not annoying to some, but propelling any form of transportation forward on city streets requires a person’s undivided attention. 

We’ve all heard that texting and driving can kill. According to U.S. Government statistics, 1 in 10 fatal crashes involve people who were distracted while driving; an entirely preventable statistic. There is no excuse for pulling your phone out if you’re driving or if you’re riding a bike. Just pull over. Even the most important phone call can wait when it’s a matter of life or death. 

If in doubt, learn to ride

The Chicago Department of Transportationand Divvy are offering free bicycle riding classeswith limited spots this summer. The classes are meant to help adults who never learned to ride a bike or haven’t ridden in a long time to ride with confidence and to feel comfortable riding on Chicago’s city streets. Space for these classes is limited. Classes may be open to children based on availability. Divvy will provide bikes to participants over the age of 16 because the program doesn’t allow kids under 16 to use its bikes. Participants under age 16 will have to provide their own bikes. 

Remember these safety tips during National Bike Month

May 8, 2017 by Ken Levinson Leave a Comment

We outline a small refresher for cyclists and drivers

With National Bike Month officially underway and warm weather on the horizon, we’re dusting off our seats, tuning our wheels, and getting ready to enjoy the best of what cycling offers: an unmitigated sense of freedom. But it also means that we (along with other cyclists) are taking precautionary measures to remind ourselves of the dangers amongst us and how to combat them. We’ve outlined a few best-practices for both cyclists and drivers.

For Cyclists: Bike lanes are your friends

The city of Chicago has at least one proponent of safe cycling in Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Since Emanuel took office, the city has added an additional 200 miles of protected bike lanes in and around Chicago, which has consequently improved people’s driving habits. In 2011 for example, the city completed the construction of the Kinzie Street Protected Bike Lane. A survey found that 49 percent of respondents felt that driving habits had improved since then. That’s the good news. The bad news: Bike lanes, while exponentially beneficial, are not a failsafe. Some drivers overlook them, which can lead to problems like “dooring” and illegal parking. The bottom line: Remain on high alert.

For Cyclists: Check for flats

It might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many cyclists forgo the necessary tune-up to get back on the road as quickly as possible. Despite having sat in a garage for the better part of four months, bikes and their tires deteriorate at a slow but steady rate. Jump-starting your ride is akin to running a marathon without having trained in the first place, meaning your legs are bound to give out in a hurry. Tires are no different. The best option: Take your bike for for a pre-spring tune-up at your local bike shop, where rates are as low as $20.

For Cyclists: Wear your helmet

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that less than half of cyclists wear bike helmets while riding, putting their chances of survival in the event of a crash at a measly percentage. The CDCP also pointed out that kids are particularly averse to wearing helmets for fear of being teased, and amazingly, a 2011 poll by the BMJ found that 68 percent of its readers opposed mandatory helmet laws.

But teasing or not, fashionable or unfashionable, skeptical or not, helmets are indisputably a last line of defense that can’t be ignored. Some studies try to promote the idea that helmets are largely inconsequential, but if you need further evidence that they indeed save lives, we point you to the law firm of attorney Steve Gursten in Michigan, where a helmet quite literally saved the eye (and possibly the life) of a longtime receptionist. Countless stories like this exist, and they are not as few and far between as you might believe. For more perspective on helmets, read Jay’s opinion.

For Cyclists: Know your hand signals


Some cyclists underestimate or flat out ignore the importance of using proper hand signals, yet it’s one of the simplest ways to declare your intentions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provides a handy (pardon the pun) guide illustrating the proper indicators, and Active outlines eight of the basics by way of a slideshow. Of strong importance: The “Stop” and “Left Hand Turn” signal.

For Drivers: Employ the “Dutch Reach”

In our last blog post, we noted that more than 300 local cyclists crashed into car doors in 2015, a 50 percent increase from the previous year, according to statistics provided by the Illinois Department of Transportation. That’s a staggering statistic. One of the solutions that we, along with many others, proposed was promoting the Dutch Read, a concept developed in the Netherlands. The idea is this: Always open the car door with the hand furthest from the door (e.g. U.S. drivers open their doors using the right hand), forcing you to turn your body in the direction of oncoming traffic, thereby giving you a better vantage point of oncoming traffic. Simple. Easy. Necessary.

For Drivers: Avoid distractions

This may be stating the obvious. Stay off your cell phones and other handheld devices. I don’t think we need linkage to any studies or statistics on this one. Nothing’s more dangerous or consequential for those who ignore the basic safety tenements of the road. It’s also illegal, which means a conviction could end up costing you anywhere from a traffic violation to jail time depending on the severity of a crash.

For Drivers: Proceed with caution

It’s inevitable that you’re going to pass a bicycle at some point while driving. Give as much room as possible at a relatively slow speed, exacting a great deal of patience as you do. If you can’t pass right away, wait until the moment’s right, and whatever you do, don’t honk. Honking can induce panic, causing cyclists to make unpredictable decisions. Don’t put either you or the cyclist in that situation.

Levinson and Stefani Injury Lawyers in Chicago / Attorney Advertising