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Hit while riding in Charleston? We build the case against the driver and chase every policy that can pay.
A bicycle on the Charleston peninsula shares pavement laid out long before cars. Travel lanes on Meeting and Calhoun are narrow, cars sit parked along both curbs, and a rider has a couple of feet between a moving bumper and a door that can swing open with no warning. Add students riding between College of Charleston buildings, visitors on rental bikes who do not know the one way pattern, and commuters using the Ravenel Bridge path or the West Ashley Greenway, and the margin disappears. When a driver turns across a bike lane or squeezes past with inches to spare, the rider is the one who ends up in the trauma bay.
Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm represents riders hurt in Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, West Ashley, and out toward Folly Beach and the islands. Our Charleston office is at 1629 Meeting Street Road. We already know the argument the adjuster will make, that you should not have been in the lane, and we know how to answer it with the statute and the evidence. Call 843-350-5420 for a free consultation. We work on a contingency fee, so there is no fee unless we win.
South Carolina treats a bicycle on the road much like any other vehicle. Section 56-5-3420 grants a person riding on a roadway all of the rights, and imposes all of the duties, that apply to the driver of a vehicle, and Section 56-5-3410 applies the traffic article to bicycles on any highway or bike path. You belong on Rutledge Avenue or Coleman Boulevard. You also stop for the light, signal turns by hand under Section 56-5-3480, and carry a working brake.
Section 56-5-3430 asks you to ride as near the right side as practicable, but lets you take another lane when it is the only one that carries you along your intended route, which happens constantly on the one way grid downtown. Where a marked bike lane exists, Section 56-5-3425 tells you to use it except to pass or clear an obstruction, and it tells drivers to yield to a rider in that lane before entering or crossing it. After dark, Section 56-5-3470 requires a white front lamp visible five hundred feet and a rear red reflector.
The crashes we see here repeat themselves, and most of them trace back to a driver who never looked.
Turning across a bike lane. A driver overtakes a rider and then cuts right into a driveway or side street, or turns left across an oncoming rider. Section 56-5-3425 requires that driver to yield to a bicyclist in the lane before crossing it, and on Lockwood Drive, Folly Road, and the wide North Charleston corridors that is the moment riders go down.
Passing too close. Section 56-5-3435 requires a driver to maintain a safe operating distance from a bicycle at all times. South Carolina does not set that distance in feet, so what counts as safe turns on the road, the speed, and the traffic, which is why peninsula lane widths matter so much.
Dooring. Section 56-5-3822 makes it unlawful to open a vehicle door unless it is reasonably safe and can be done without interfering with traffic. With cars parked along both sides downtown, that risk never lets up.
Distraction and beach traffic. Drivers headed for Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms, or crossing the Ravenel Bridge, often are not looking for a rider at all.
South Carolina applies modified comparative negligence, adopted in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. You can recover as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the defendant’s, meaning fifty percent or less, and your award is reduced by your percentage. At fifty one percent you recover nothing. Every point of blame an insurer shifts onto you is money off the table. If your losses run one hundred thousand dollars and a jury assigns you twenty percent, you take home eighty thousand.
That is why adjusters reach for the helmet. South Carolina has no statute requiring a bicycle helmet on a public road. In Mayes v. Paxton the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected contributory negligence and assumption of risk defenses built on a motorcyclist’s choice to ride without a helmet where no statute required one. Insurers still float the point, and they treat your lights and your clothing the same way, so the answer is proof of what the driver did.
The at fault driver’s liability policy is normally the first source of payment for medical bills, lost income, and pain. South Carolina requires drivers to carry that coverage, but the minimum limits are low, and a bicycle crash can blow past them with one ambulance ride and one surgery. Hit and run drivers downtown and on the beach roads are their own problem.
Your own auto insurance may still help even though you were on a bike. Section 38-77-150 requires every South Carolina auto policy to carry uninsured motorist coverage paying the insured what he is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured vehicle. That language does not require you to be inside a car. Section 38-77-160 covers underinsured motorist coverage and speaks directly to a crash in which none of the insured’s vehicles is involved. A household relative’s policy can reach you too.
We pull every policy before anyone signs a release.
A bicycle claim should account for everything the crash cost you, not just the bills that have already arrived. In South Carolina those losses usually sort into a few categories.
Medical care, from the ambulance and the emergency department through surgery, hardware, physical therapy, scar revision, and the treatment a doctor says you will still need years from now.
Lost earnings, covering the paychecks you missed and any lasting hit to what you are able to earn, which matters if your work is physical or your hands were injured.
Pain and suffering, for the physical pain, the anxiety that follows a rider back onto the road, and the parts of your life the injury took away.
Property damage, including the bicycle itself, the wheels, the helmet, the computer, and the kit that went into the road with you.
South Carolina also allows punitive damages where the conduct was reckless, which comes up in drunk driving and hit and run cases. Cyclists absorb the whole impact, so the future costs are often the largest part of the claim, and we document them rather than guess.
Most bicycle injury suits in South Carolina must be filed within three years of the crash. Section 15-3-530(5) sets that limit for an action for injury to the person. Miss it and the court will not hear the case, no matter how plainly the driver was at fault.
A shorter clock runs when a government defendant is involved, and in Charleston that comes up often, whether it is a city or county vehicle, a CARTA bus, or a road hazard on a street maintained by the City of Charleston, Charleston County, or SCDOT. The South Carolina Tort Claims Act generally allows two years under Sections 15-78-100 and 15-78-110, stretched to three only where a claim is filed first, and it caps what a public entity pays. Waiting also costs you proof. Downtown camera footage is recorded over, paint marks fade, and the visitor who watched it happen flies home.
An insurer handling an unrepresented cyclist has an easy job. It can take a recorded statement, suggest you were hard to see, and put an early number in front of you before anyone knows whether the shoulder heals. Comparative negligence gives the adjuster a reason to argue, and arguing costs them nothing until someone makes it cost something.
We work the crash from the ground up. That means the scene and the sight lines, the vehicle damage, the officer and the witnesses, and the cameras on nearby buildings before the footage cycles. We identify every policy, liability, uninsured, and underinsured, and we bring in treating doctors on what the injury will still demand in five years. When an offer stays unreasonable, we file in Charleston County.
You heal. We handle the rest. The consultation is free, the fee is contingent, and you owe no attorney fee unless we recover. Call 843-350-5420.
Often yes, because drivers say that when they were not looking. We use the scene, the damage patterns, witnesses, and nearby camera footage to show what was there to be seen. The first consultation is free and you owe no fee unless we win.
Three years from the crash in most cases, under Section 15-3-530(5) of the South Carolina Code. If a government entity is involved, such as a city or county vehicle or a dangerous roadway, the Tort Claims Act generally allows two years under Sections 15-78-100 and 15-78-110, so it pays to call early.
Usually yes. South Carolina follows modified comparative negligence from Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. You can recover so long as your fault is not greater than the defendant’s, fifty percent or less, with the award cut by your share. At fifty one percent you recover nothing, which is why inflated blame gets fought.
You may still be covered. Section 38-77-150 requires uninsured motorist coverage on every South Carolina auto policy, and it pays the insured what an uninsured driver owes without requiring you to be inside a car. A household family member’s policy can apply too. We check all of them.
South Carolina has no statute requiring a bicycle helmet. In Mayes v. Paxton the state Supreme Court refused to let a helmet choice support contributory negligence or assumption of risk where no statute required one. Insurers still raise it.
You pay nothing unless we recover.
Charleston Office, Answering 24/7
Get a free, no obligation review of your Charleston bicycle claim. No fee unless we win.
