Contributory What?

Often referred to as the “one percent” rule, the Contributory Negligence doctrine prohibits you from recovering damages (money) from a crash if a court thinks you are in any way responsible for the crash. A few examples of what this looks like:

• You slow down and look, but roll through a four-way stop, then a drunk driver runs the sign and crashes into you.
• You get doored, and a police officer incorrectly tickets you for riding too close to parked cars.
• The battery on your blinky tail light dies while you’re riding home from work, and a texting driver veers into the bike lane and crashes into you.

In any of these cases, you may not be able to collect any compensation for your smashed up bike, your broken leg, or the days of work you missed while you were healing. Only four states (Maryland and Virginia among them) and the District of Columbia retain this outdated legal doctrine. DC Councilmember David Grosso recently introduced the “Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Amendment Act of 2014” to update DC law to the fairer, more modern Comparative Negligence standard for crashes between drivers and bicyclists or pedestrians.  This means your compensation would be reduced to the extent the you were responsible for the crash, but not eliminated entirely.  Most of the rest of the country has already adopted this more sensible standard. Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Tommy Wells are also co-introducing the bill. The legislation has been referred to the DC Council Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, which will hold a public hearing on the bill at the end of the month. If you or other bicyclists you know have been hit and had your insurance claim reduced or denied, please consider testifying.

DC Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety Hearing September 29th, 2014 at 12:30 pm Wilson Building, Room 500 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20004 View the hearing notice (PDF) Please call Nicole at 202-724-7808 to sign up to testify.

We are hosting a conference call on Sept. 23rd at 7pm to answer questions about testifying on this issue. Email advocacy@waba.org if you’d like to join the call. If you don’t have personal experience with this issue, please sign-up now to receive updates and we will let you know when there is an opportunity to take action in support of the legislation. Learn more about the “Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Amendment Act of 2014” our advocacy campaign page. We will be posting additional information the campaign page in the coming weeks, including an FAQ early next week.