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One moment you were riding in the bike lane. The next, a car with a glowing dashboard sticker turned across your path, and now you are dealing with a wrecked bike, painful injuries, and an insurance question most cyclists never expect. Crashes caused by Uber and Lyft drivers are different from ordinary collisions because the coverage that applies depends on whether the driver was logged into the app, heading to a pickup, or carrying a passenger. A Maryland bicycle accident attorney at McGowan & Cecil, LLC can identify every policy that applies and deal with the insurers while you focus on healing.
How Maryland’s Rideshare Insurance Rules Work
Maryland does not leave rideshare insurance to the companies’ discretion. State law defines rideshare driving, which it calls transportation network services, in three distinct coverage periods, and each period carries insurance requirements.
The three coverage periods work like this:
- Period One begins when the driver logs into the app and is ready to accept a ride request.
- Period Two begins when the driver accepts a request and is traveling to pick up the passenger.
- Period Three covers the trip itself, from pickup until the passenger leaves the vehicle.
During all three periods, the driver, the rideshare company, or both must maintain primary insurance that covers at least $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident for bodily injury or death, plus $25,000 for property damage, along with uninsured motorist and personal injury protection coverage. By comparison, an ordinary personal vehicle in Maryland only needs $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident in bodily injury coverage and $15,000 in property damage coverage. For a cyclist, the difference matters. Bicycle riders absorb the full force of a collision, and serious injuries can exhaust a minimal personal policy quickly.
Why the Driver’s App Status Decides Which Policy Pays
If the driver’s app was off, the driver was not providing rideshare services in the eyes of Maryland law, and only the driver’s personal auto policy applies. If the app was on, the rideshare coverage requirements kick in, and the picture changes completely.
Here is the complication. Maryland law expressly allows personal auto insurers to exclude all coverage while a driver is providing rideshare services, including liability, uninsured motorist, medical payments, and personal injury protection coverage. Many personal policies contain exactly that exclusion. So the personal insurer may deny the claim outright, and the rideshare coverage becomes the real target. The law does provide a safety net. The company’s insurance must cover a qualifying claim from the first dollar and defend it if the driver’s own policy has been canceled, has lapsed, or is otherwise not in force.
Because so much turns on app status, expect the insurers to fight about it. Maryland law gives injured people a powerful tool here. In a claim investigation after a crash, the rideshare company and its insurers must cooperate in exchanging information with directly involved parties, including the precise times the driver was logged into the app during the 12 hours before and the 12 hours after the accident. Your attorney can use that record to prove which coverage period applies.
Who May Be Liable When a Rideshare Driver Hits a Cyclist
Cyclists on Maryland roads generally have the same rights and duties as drivers of vehicles. Drivers, in turn, owe cyclists specific statutory duties. A driver must exercise due care to avoid colliding with any person riding a bicycle and, when overtaking, must generally pass at a distance of at least three feet unless a statutory exception applies.
Rideshare trips also create a hazard that most articles about these crashes overlook: dooring. A passenger stepping out of an Uber or Lyft at the curb can fling a door directly into a cyclist’s path. Maryland law says a person, not just a driver, may not open a vehicle door on the side available to moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so and it will not interfere with other traffic. Depending on the facts, an injured cyclist may have a claim arising from the conduct of the driver, a passenger, or another motorist entirely, and more than one insurance policy may be in play.
Steps to Take After a Rideshare Bicycle Accident
What you do in the minutes and days after the crash shapes the strength of your claim.
Take these steps if your injuries allow:
- Call 911 so police and medical responders come to the scene and a crash report is created.
- Get the driver’s name, license, and insurance details, and ask whether the driver was on a rideshare trip. After a crash involving rideshare driving, Maryland law requires the operator, on request of directly interested parties, to show proof of insurance and disclose whether the accident happened while providing rideshare services.
- Photograph the vehicle, your bicycle, your injuries, the roadway, and any bike lane markings.
- Get medical care right away, even if you feel able to ride home. Adrenaline masks serious injuries.
- Keep your bicycle, helmet, and gear in their damaged condition. They are evidence.
- Decline to give recorded statements to any insurer until you have spoken with an attorney.
Each of these steps protects the two things every rideshare bicycle claim needs: proof of what happened and proof of the driver’s app status when it happened.
Challenges Cyclists Face When Filing a Claim
Maryland still follows contributory negligence, a strict all-or-nothing fault rule. If the insurer can show that your own carelessness contributed to the crash, even a small share of the blame, you can be barred from recovering anything at all. Insurers know this, and they comb through every detail of a cyclist’s conduct, from lane position to compliance with traffic laws, looking for an argument that you contributed to the collision. Because cyclists owe the same duties as drivers, those arguments can be aggressive and technical.
Rideshare cases add another layer: multiple insurers pointing at each other. The personal insurer says the app was on. The company’s insurer says it was off. While they argue, your medical bills keep arriving. On top of that, Maryland generally gives you three years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit, and important evidence like app logs and camera footage can disappear far sooner. Moving quickly protects both the deadline and the proof.
Put McGowan & Cecil, LLC on Your Side Today
Our Laurel-based attorneys have represented injured people throughout the Baltimore-Washington metro area for over two decades, and we handle auto accident and bicycle injury claims on contingency, so you pay no attorney fee unless we recover for you. We assign at least one attorney and one paralegal to every case, and we deal with the insurers so you can heal. Contact McGowan & Cecil, LLC today for a free consultation. Se Habla Español.