Liability for a Seattle bicycle crash usually lands on the driver who broke a rule of the road, but it can also reach that driver’s employer, the public agency responsible for a dangerous street, or the maker of a defective part. Washington gives a rider on the roadway the rights and duties of a driver, and a rider on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk the rights and duties of a pedestrian. Either way, the first question is who failed to use reasonable care. The second is whether a government agency shares the blame, because a claim against a city or county must first be presented on a formal claim form, and no lawsuit can begin until 60 days later. Our Seattle bicycle accident attorneys answer both questions from day one.
The Driver Is the Starting Point, Not the Whole Answer
Because riders have the same rights and duties as a driver or pedestrian, depending on their use of the roadway, an ordinary negligence analysis applies to both sides of the collision. This largely depends on specific traffic rules violated, and Washington writes several of those rules with riders directly in mind. If you want the plain-language version of what the rules of the road require of riders and drivers, the state transportation department keeps a current summary.
Three failures come up again and again in Seattle collisions:
Unsafe Passing
The rule applies when a rider is in the right lane, on the right-hand shoulder, or in a bike lane. On a street with two or more lanes running the same direction, the driver has to move completely into a lane to the left of the right lane, as soon as it is safe to do so, before passing and until safely clear.
Where a single lane carries traffic in that direction and there is room to spare beside the rider, the driver may instead stay in the lane, slow to a safe passing speed and pass at a safe distance, which must be at least three feet where practicable. Where the lane is too narrow for that, the driver must move completely into the oncoming lane when it is safe and lawful to do so.
Dooring
No person may open a door on the side next to moving traffic until it is reasonably safe to do so. That duty is written to reach anyone who opens a door, including a passenger in the back seat, not only the person behind the wheel.
Failing to Stop at a Crosswalk
A driver must stop and remain stopped for a bicycle in a marked or an unmarked crosswalk once the rider is upon, or within one lane of, the half of the roadway the driver is traveling on or turning onto. On a one-way street that half is the entire width of the road, and the words about turning are what make this rule matter in a right-hook collision.
The driver may not be the only party paying. Washington makes a party responsible for the fault of another when the two were acting in concert, or when the person was acting as an agent or servant. That is how a delivery company, a rideshare platform whose driver was on a dispatched trip, or an employer whose worker was on the clock ends up in the case alongside the driver.
A Claim Against the City Has Additional Filing Requirements
Sometimes the street itself is the problem, such as a bike lane left unmaintained, a trench reopened after utility work, or a rail groove angled to catch a narrow wheel. When the potential defendant is a city or a county, the procedure changes before anyone reaches the merits. Washington makes local governments liable for tortious conduct to the same extent as a private person or corporation, and it defines a city and a county as local governmental entities, so both the City of Seattle and King County sit inside that rule.
Filing a written claim is a condition precedent to filing suit. The claim goes to the agent the entity has appointed to receive it, and it must be presented within the limitations period, which for a negligence claim in Washington is usually three years. Then comes the part that catches people. You cannot commence the lawsuit until 60 calendar days have elapsed after presenting the claim, though the limitations period is tolled during those 60 days as to that defendant.
The claim rule that governs cities and counties is construed liberally, so substantial compliance is treated as satisfactory, but the waiting period is written as a flat prohibition on commencing the action any earlier. A rider who first calls a lawyer in the 34th month of a dangerous roadway claim may have far less margin than the three-year figure suggests.
Sharing Some of the Fault Reduces the Recovery, It Does Not End It
Washington follows comparative fault. Any fault charged to the injured person reduces the award in proportion, but it does not bar recovery, and there is no general 50% cutoff of the kind many riders assume after reading an ambiguous collision report. One narrow statutory exception matters in crash cases.
A rider who was under the influence of alcohol or a drug, whose condition was a proximate cause of the injury, and who is found more than half at fault faces a complete defense. Outside that situation, a fault percentage shrinks a recovery rather than ending it.
How the percentages fall still matters twice over. The fact finder assigns a share of the total fault to every entity that caused the harm, counting the injured rider and counting parties who are not at the table, and those shares must add up to 100%. By default each defendant then owes only that proportionate share. The exception is the one worth fighting for.
When the fact finder decides the injured person was not at fault at all, the defendants against whom judgment is entered become jointly and severally liable for the sum of their shares. A rider is then not left chasing the least solvent defendant for a slice of the total.
Two Arguments Insurers Raise Against Seattle Riders
An adjuster hunting for a fault percentage usually reaches for one of two arguments, and both are weaker than they sound:
Rolling a Stop Sign
Washington gives a rider a choice at a stop sign: follow the stop-sign rule, or follow the yield-sign rule instead. Choosing the yield option is not permission to ride through. The rider must still slow to a speed reasonable for conditions, stop if safety requires it, and yield to any vehicle close enough to be an immediate hazard. The option disappears at a railroad grade crossing and at a school bus stop signal, and it carries a real risk. A rider who passes a yield sign without stopping and is then struck is treated as having presumptively failed to yield, and that presumption has to be answered with evidence rather than argument.
Riding Without a Helmet
There is no statewide helmet requirement in Washington. The King County Board of Health repealed the county helmet regulation in 2022, after finding that citations had gone to Black, Indigenous, and other riders of color more often than to white cyclists, and that people experiencing homelessness reported the helmet rule as a common reason for contact with police. Helmet rules elsewhere in Washington are set locally, so the answer depends on where the ride happened.
Neither argument settles anything by itself, which is why the record built in the first few weeks tends to decide the fight. Photographs of the lane and the sight lines, the collision report, the names of witnesses, and the bicycle preserved with its broken components still attached are worth more than any reconstruction assembled from memory a year later.
Talk With a Seattle Bicycle Injury Lawyer
If a driver, an employer, or a public agency put you on the pavement, the sooner someone starts preserving evidence and tracking the deadlines, the more of the recovery survives. Stritmatter Law is a Washington trial firm that represents injured plaintiffs. Contact Stritmatter Law to talk it through, and know that consultations are always free.
