Cyclist hit by a rideshare driver and airlifted

Attorney Answer

Two separate questions are tangled together here, and they come apart cleanly. What you have to prove is the same as in any Alabama injury claim. Who pays is where the rideshare connection changes things — and it turns on something as specific as what the driver's app was doing at the moment of impact.

Start with what you must establish, because it does not change: that the driver was negligent, and that their negligence caused your injuries. An airlift and the treatment that followed will document the injuries thoroughly. Liability is the ordinary inquiry — speed, lookout, right of way, whether the driver saw you and when.

Alabama is one of a handful of states that still applies contributory negligence, and it changes everything about a claim here. If the person claiming is found to have been negligent themselves, and that negligence helped cause the injury, they recover nothing — not a reduced amount, nothing. There is no apportionment and no percentage.

Two things soften that, and both matter.

It is a defense the other side has to prove. Contributory negligence is an affirmative defense, so the burden is on the defendant to establish it rather than on the claimant to disprove it. And it is not established simply by showing carelessness: the defendant generally has to show the claimant knew of the danger, appreciated it, and failed to take reasonable care anyway. Alabama's courts have said that simple heedlessness is not enough, and that it is normally a question for a jury rather than something decided as a matter of law.

And it is no defense at all to wanton conduct. Where the other party's behavior goes beyond ordinary negligence to wantonness, contributory negligence does not bar the claim. That makes how the other driver's conduct is characterized one of the most consequential questions in an Alabama case.

For a cyclist that rule deserves particular attention. A defense will look at your lighting, your position on the road, whether you were where a cyclist is entitled to be, and what you did in the moments before. Anything there that amounts to a want of care for your own safety and helped cause the collision does not reduce your claim — it ends it. It has to be proved, and it needs more than simple heedlessness, but it will be looked for.

Now the coverage question, which is where the app matters. Rideshare platforms generally structure insurance in stages, and which stage applies depends on the driver's app status at the moment of impact — broadly, whether the app was off, whether it was on but the driver had no passenger assignment, or whether they were on the way to collect or carrying a passenger. The amount available can differ enormously between those stages, and for a serious injury that difference is often the whole case.

This is a contractual question rather than a statutory one, which has a practical consequence for you: nobody can tell you the answer from the facts you already have. It depends on the platform's own policy terms and on the platform's record of what the app was doing. That record exists, it is obtainable, and it is the single most valuable thing to secure early — not least because the driver's own account of whether they were working may not be reliable.

Do not let the driver's personal insurer close this out quickly. A personal auto policy commonly excludes commercial or ridesharing use, so the first response may be a denial that looks final and is not. Equally, an early offer against a serious injury is worth treating with suspicion rather than gratitude.

What you can do

1. Get the crash report and check whether it records the driver as working for a platform at the time. 2. Ask, in writing and quickly, for the platform's trip and app-status record for that driver at that moment. Do not rely on what the driver says about it. 3. Preserve the bicycle exactly as it is, and photograph it and your helmet and clothing before anything is cleaned, repaired or thrown out. 4. Collect every medical record from the airlift onward, including the flight record, and keep following the treatment plan without gaps. 5. Identify witnesses now, and find out whether any nearby camera covers the location — footage is usually overwritten within days. 6. Do not give any insurer a recorded statement about your riding before taking advice. 7. Speak to an Alabama attorney promptly. A serious injury with a contested coverage tier and a complete-bar fault rule is not a claim to run alone.

⏱ Time limits apply. Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l) gives two years: “all actions for any injury to the person or rights of another not arising from contract and not specifically enumerated in this section must be brought within two years.” Evidence goes sooner — footage is overwritten and memories fade — so the practical deadline is usually much earlier than the legal one.

An Alabama attorney can tell you quickly how the facts here line up, and most will look at a matter like this at no cost.