You went down trying to avoid a driver who never checked their blind spot, and somehow the police report still lists you as a contributing factor. It’s a phenomenon known as Motorcycle Bias.
If you ride in Dallas-Fort Worth, you already know how this goes. Motorcycle riders get blamed for crashes they didn’t cause, and it happens often enough that it’s not bad luck. It’s a pattern.
Motorcycle bias isn’t a small problem, and it isn’t confined to one part of North Texas. From the freeways of Fort Worth to the busy intersections of Carrollton, riders across the metroplex face the same odds. TxDOT data shows 557 motorcyclists were killed and 2,468 seriously injured on Texas roads in 2025, averaging nearly two rider deaths a day statewide, with Tarrant County named among the leading counties for fatal motorcycle crashes. Just this month, a rider was killed in a single-vehicle crash on Fort Worth’s Loop 820, one of several fatal wrecks to shut down that corridor in recent weeks. With that many riders going down, the question of who actually caused each crash matters more than ever, and it’s a question insurance companies have a financial incentive to answer wrong.
Why the Blame Lands on the Motorcycle Rider First
Insurance companies and even responding officers bring assumptions to every motorcycle crash before they’ve looked at a single skid mark.
Riders are assumed to be reckless. Speed, lane-splitting, and stunt riding get all the media attention, so adjusters start from the premise that the motorcyclist was doing something risky, even when the evidence says otherwise.
A missing helmet gets used against you, even when it didn’t cause the crash. Texas doesn’t require a helmet for riders 21 and older who’ve completed a safety course or carry the right insurance, but insurers know a jury can still assign you a share of fault for a head injury if you weren’t wearing one. They’ll lean on that to shrink your payout even in cases where the driver caused the wreck entirely and the helmet had nothing to do with how the crash happened.
Bikes leave less physical evidence. A car involved in a crash shows crumpled metal and broken glass that tells a clear story. A motorcycle can flip, slide, and separate from the rider in ways that are harder to reconstruct after the fact, which leaves more room for a car driver’s version of events to fill the gap.
Drivers rarely see motorcycles coming. Left-turning vehicles cause roughly 42% of crashes between cars and motorcycles according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This is the single most common way these wrecks happen, and it’s the car driver’s misjudgment from the start. That’s a documented perception problem on the driver’s end, but it gets reframed as a visibility problem on the rider’s end, as if the rider should have somehow compensated for someone else’s failure to look and perceive.
Put those things together, and you get a system that’s primed to find fault with the person on two wheels before anyone has reviewed the actual facts of the crash.
How to Push Back on the Assumption
You can’t control what an adjuster assumes when they call you. You can control what evidence exists to correct them.
Get the scene documented, not just described. Photos and videos of the actual point of impact, skid marks, debris field, and vehicle positioning matter more in a motorcycle case than almost any other kind of crash, because they’re often the only objective record once the bike itself has been moved or totaled.
Push for a real accident reconstruction, not a guess. DFW’s traffic volume means officers are often working multiple calls and don’t have time to fully investigate a motorcycle crash before filing a report. In fact, in some North Texas cities the police aren’t even responding unless there are injuries or the crash is serious. If generated, a police report is a starting point, not the final word on fault, and it can be challenged with reconstruction analysis, traffic camera footage, and witness statements the initial report missed.
Don’t let “I didn’t see them” become your fault. That phrase should work against the driver, not you. It’s an admission that they failed to look, not evidence that you did anything wrong.
Watch for early lowball offers. Insurers move fast on motorcycle claims because they’re counting on riders assuming they’re a hard sell. A quick settlement offer before your injuries and losses are fully understood is a sign they know their liability case is weaker than the story they’re telling. This is one of several tactics insurance companies use on Texans after a wreck, and motorcycle riders, already starting from a place of assumed fault, are prime targets for it.
Don’t Let Assumption Decide Your Case
An early assumption of fault because of Motorcycle Bias isn’t proof of anything. It’s a starting point, and it can be beaten.
O’Hare and Koch have successfully navigated motorcycle cases before and won settlements for our motorcycle clients. We’ve spent more than 25 years handling cases just like this and winning them for our clients. Riders know how to handle the road. We know how to handle everything that happens after.
If you’ve been in a motorcycle crash anywhere in North Texas and the story being told doesn’t match what actually happened, O’Hare and Koch can take a real look at the evidence, not the assumptions, and build the case for what you’re actually owed.
Your case review is free, there’s no obligation, and you don’t pay us a dime unless we win for you.
