The
Illinois Bicycle Lawyers at Keating Law Offices recently filed a
lawsuit in Cook County on behalf of a Skokie man who sustained severe
injuries in an April 2012 motor vehicle versus bicycle collision. The
collision occurred at the "T" intersection of Dempster Street and Kenton
Avenue in Skokie, Illinois. Immediately prior to the collision, the
bicyclist was traveling eastbound on Dempster, which does not have a
stop sign at the Kenton Avenue intersection. At the same time, the
driver of a 2006 Buick was driving southbound on Kenton Avenue towards a
stop sign at Dempster. The motorist rolled through the stop sign and
struck our client's bicycle in the intersection as the motorist
attempted to turn right onto Dempster. Though the motorist initially
told the responding officer that it was our client who struck the
motorist's vehicle, we obtained a copy of a 911 recording in which the
motorist explicitly admitted striking our client's bicycle with his vehicle.
Section
106-48 of the Skokie Code of Ordinances and Section 5/11-1003.1 of the
Illinois Rules of the Road imposed an explicit duty to exercise "due
care" on the motorist. This means that the motorist was required to
operate his vehicle with appropriate caution to avoid causing harm to
other motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians, including our client. The
motorist also failed to yield to our client's right-of-way in accordance
with Section 5/11-1002(e) of the Illinois Rules of the Road
which prohibited the motorist from driving through the Dempter stop sign
until our client proceeded through the intersection, given that our
client did not have a stop sign. Finally, the motorist violated the
common law duty to keep a proper lookout, because he failed to notice
our client and take steps necessary to avoid harming him as our client
lawfully rode through the intersection. The Skokie Police Department issued a citation to the motorist for causing the collision.
As
a result of the collision the bicyclist suffered a massive injury to
his left leg, requiring an open-reduction and internal fixation (ORIF)
surgery. During the operation, an orthopedic surgeon implanted surgical
hardware into our client's bone in an effort to stabilize his leg. The
operation left our client bedridden for a month and subsequently
required him to participate in extensive physical therapy.
Unfortunately, our client later experienced complications with the
hardware in his leg and the hardware had to be removed in a separate
operation over a year after the original surgery. Our client was again
left bedridden and is still attempting to rehabilitate his leg following
the second operation.
The case has been assigned to a judge in the Law Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Keating Law Offices is the leading Illinois law firm the in the
field of bicycle litigation. The firm is currently handling more bicycle-related lawsuits in Illinois than any other firm in the state. If you have any questions regarding this
post or an issue involving Illinois personal injury law, please contact
Illinois Bicycle Attorney Mike Keating at 312-208-7702 or MKeating@KeatingLegal.com
