We all have stories. Stories of our time out in the world, minding our own business, living and loving life on two wheels, and then it all gets upended by someone who isn’t paying attention to their surroundings. It doesn’t have to be catastrophic in its outcome, but the prevalence of these situations and events feel ever-increasing in their regularity.
In a world as fast-paced as ours, where we’re constantly connected to some device or another, people, everyone, just aren’t paying enough attention to anything around them. Their attention is…elsewhere.
As motorcyclists, we know this. We watch out for this. That’s why, while driver’s education teaches car drivers that they should be scanning two to three cars ahead, we motorcyclists are scanning 15 to 20 cars ahead. And we’re turning our heads through corners. We’re watching out far ahead and all around because we have to be ready to react to constantly changing conditions and drivers who just don’t care about keeping their eyes on the road. We’re hawks in a sea of drunken drone pilots.
Ryan Richardson knows this truism all too well, unfortunately.
See, despite his head being on a swivel, despite paying attention to everything around him, despite following the rules of the road himself, someone who absolutely wasn’t paying attention to him, as well as their own surroundings, hit him.
But to make matters worse, they didn’t just look down for a second, only to look back up and suddenly realize he was there. No, instead, the person actively backed up at a rapid pace through an intersection, slamming into him and throwing him off his motorcycle.
The result was a gruesome injury, a totaled motorcycle, and a healthy appreciation for the work that Law Tigers does for riders like him, so much so that he joined the company shortly after.
He tells RideApart his story here.
About two years ago, I was in an accident.
I'm an avid rider; I've been riding since I was a kid, and I started on dirt and then transitioned over to the street when I was about 15 or 16.
But one day, I was riding in Georgia with a buddy of mine, and we had taken a day just riding around Atlanta, you know, kind of shopping and stuff like that. We were heading back up North, and I got off for a second just to go hit a coffee shop, use the restroom, and just take a break for a second.
All of a sudden, I get hit in the parking lot. I looked to the left, and I was getting reversed into by somebody in the intersection. They were just reversing through an intersection.
So I braked, I braced for impact, and they were probably doing about 10 or 15 mph in reverse. It was, yeah, it was interesting. It was a weird accident, but I lifted my left leg and kind of braced for impact, and next thing you know, I'm thrown off the bike.
I didn’t feel too hurt, so I tried to take a step and stand up to, you know, see what's going on. But my left leg folded up at the shin. I later found out it was a full tibia/fibula fracture, and my left leg was just kinda, kinda folded in half. It was rough.
I then lay there for a bit, just kind of in agony, you know, because literally half of my leg was attached to my foot and ankle, and then the rest of it was propped up on that half of my leg. It was brutal. And so I was sitting there, kind of screaming, “Oh my God!”, like “What have you done?” kind of thing to the driver. Luckily, she got out of the car because there was nowhere for her to go. She couldn't take off because we were in a very crowded intersection. And I had five or six people rush over to me, and they all saw it, and it was kind of a cut-and-dry situation there.
Five to ten minutes later, the police were there, and the ambulance, and all that stuff, and I got taken to the hospital and had to go in for immediate surgery because they weren't getting a pulse in my foot. I had stents put into the artery in my leg, and then they finally got a pulse to it. They did a full rod insertion from my knee down to my ankle, so through my leg, too.
I've never been in a wreck prior to this. Again, I'd been riding for over 10 years and had never had an accident that involved somebody else. I’ve laid a bike down before on my own accord; it just happens sometimes, you know, especially when you're a new rider or whatever. But this is the first time I've been hit.
I’d worked at a motorcycle shop previously, and we had a Law Tigers rep that came in every so often. She would bring us food, bring us lunch, chat us up, and talk to us a little bit about Law Tigers and what they do and how they help injured riders and whatnot. And, you know, it crossed my mind when I was lying in a hospital bed, and I was there for almost a week, and I was talking to some friends about it. We kept asking, “What should I do?”
My wife and I were recently married, too, and had just gotten back from our honeymoon the week after. And because I was a full-time welder/fabricator at the time, I was completely out of a job due to my injuries. We were renting a house, I had a car payment, credit card bills were stacking up just from the fact that I couldn't work.
And so I remembered Law Tigers and just gave them a call, and the rest is really history. They got the camera footage of the accident, and were able to kind of see the incident and kind of see the direction the bike was facing after I hit the ground. They also got the police officer’s body camera where they were telling the woman, “You can't reverse through here. Why were you in reverse in the first place?” She claimed on camera, “Oh, I missed a parking spot”, and then tried to claim that I hit her directly from the back, even though I got hit on the left side.
How would my left leg snap like that if I rear-ended her?
It was kind of complicated because it was at first kind of a he said, she said situation. But I was obviously the one with a completely broken left leg, and that would have made no sense in how my left leg would have broken if I had just rear-ended her. I think she was just trying to get out of it.
Law Tigers cut through it all, and then went after her insurance. So we were trying to get the max, max, max amount that we could, and luckily, she had a great policy through her parents. She tried to avoid getting served for probably 6 months, until Law Tigers ended up finding out that her insurance was through her parents, and we ended up just serving them. We ended up maxing out the policy, which was about a $100,000 to $300,000 policy..
The lawsuit, however, didn't go to trial, and I was left with a solid settlement, which I was then able to take care of everything. My wife and I ended up with a house, and I was able to pay off debt and all that stuff, so everything worked out in the end for sure.
Law Tigers was incredible and very communicative, and I felt like they were always on top of everything. I really had no worries when it came to anything. It was more about my mental state at the time, which was stressing about bills and stressing about paying for physical therapy, and they took care of everything. But it was, it was fantastic. I had a great experience, and I'm honestly indebted to them just for handling it the way they did, and how they told me to.
So about a year later, I was working back at that motorcycle shop that I used to work at. Law Tigers had a marketing manager at the time who had gotten injured and couldn't really do the job on foot, but she was still pretty active in the community remotely and trying to cover all the bases just the best she could. But she had mobility issues and couldn't really continue. So she hit me up.
She asked me, “Hey, we're gonna have an opening soon,” and I asked her, “What do you mean? Are you leaving?” She told me the story, and I later found a job on Indeed and ended up applying for it, writing a new resume and cover letter for it, and they ended up interviewing me. Given my experience, they sort of said, “Dude, this is kind of cut and dry.”
I was a client. I have the experience. And it just kind of worked out in my favor in the long run, you know, so now I'm part of the team, going on the road, doing events and marketing at shops. It's come full circle, and it gives me the leverage to be an advocate for the company in a different way. That personal touch. I'm able to share my firsthand experience and tell people, “Hey, this isn't an ambulance chaser thing.”
I've never had a job or an employer take care of me like I have been taken care of here.
A Note from Law Tigers to Riders
Ryan Richardson’s story is a reminder of the risks on the road and how insurance might not cover everything. That's where Law Tigers comes in. We’re more than just a network of lawyers; we're riders who understand motorcycle accidents inside and out. We’re here to help you legally and support you all the way through your recovery. When Ryan faced overwhelming medical bills and a financial crisis, Law Tigers stepped in. We worked on his behalf, negotiating his bills and turning a dire situation into a manageable one.
Don’t ride alone. Sign up for our free Rider Benefit Kit and join the Law Tigers community. With us, you are part of a family, a nationwide network of riders who stick together. Because on and off the road, Law Tigers always have your back.
