Maryland Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog

When Police Following a Stolen Car Ends in a Maryland Motorcycle Crash

October 28, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A jury may find a county negligent for a motorcycle crash caused by a fleeing driver its officers were following, even though no police car touched anyone. The Appellate Court of Maryland reached that conclusion in an unreported opinion filed September 18, 2026. It reinstated a negligence claim against Prince George’s County brought by a rider who lost his leg below the knee when a stolen SUV crossed the center line and struck him. Unreported opinions are not binding precedent.

Two rules decide a Maryland motorcycle accident claim that grows out of a police chase or a police following. The officer is immune from an ordinary negligence claim and can be sued only for gross negligence or malice. The government that owns the police vehicle can be liable for ordinary negligence, although a statute may cap what it owes.

The jury had awarded the rider $2,352,541 against the fleeing driver and the County. The trial judge then set aside the County’s share. Lebowitz & Mzhen Personal Injury Lawyers represents riders in Maryland motorcycle accident claims, and for a rider hit by someone in a stolen vehicle, the County’s share may be the only part of a verdict that can be collected.

How Maryland’s Vulnerable Road User Protection Act Helps Injured Cyclists

September 29, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Last updated September 27, 2026 · Reviewed by Jack D. Lebowitz

Maryland’s Vulnerable Road User Protection Act of 2026 takes effect on October 1, and it gives the State Highway Administration a tool for stretches of road where people outside a vehicle are most at risk. Chapter 285 of the 2026 Laws of Maryland authorizes speed cameras in designated safety corridors, which the new law defines as highway segments the agency identifies as high risk to vulnerable road users.

The act leaves the fault rule alone. Maryland still applies contributory negligence to a cyclist struck by a driver, so a rider found even slightly at fault can recover nothing, and the 2026 bill that would have replaced that rule for cyclists and pedestrians did not pass.

Maryland Has Already Lost More Riders in 2026 Than in All of 2025

August 31, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Last updated August 21, 2026 · Reviewed by Vadim A. Mzhen

Motorcyclist deaths in Maryland have passed last year’s total with more than four months still to run. State police figures posted to the Zero Deaths Maryland dashboard put the count at 51 as of August 18, against 49 for all of 2025, as reported by the Washington Times. Every other category of road death in the state fell over the same period.

Most of these crashes happen at intersections, and most intersection cases turn on who had the right of way rather than on speed or rider skill. Maryland answers that question with a statutory duty and a common-law doctrine built on top of it, and together they are usually more favorable to a rider than an insurance adjuster’s first letter suggests.

Right-of-way disputes are the single most common fight in a Maryland motorcycle accident claim, and they are a recurring part of what Lebowitz & Mzhen Personal Injury Lawyers works on for riders statewide.

Why Left Turns Are So Deadly for Maryland Riders

July 30, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Last updated July 13, 2026 · Reviewed by the attorneys at Lebowitz & Mzhen

Summer is the heart of riding season in Maryland, and it is also when the most dangerous crashes tend to happen. On July 12, 2026, a collision on Route 301 in Upper Marlboro killed three people when, as WTOP reported based on Maryland State Police findings, a turning vehicle failed to yield to a motorcycle already traveling through the roadway. It is a pattern that repeats across the state every year: a driver turns across a rider’s path, and the person on the motorcycle has nowhere to go. Understanding why these crashes happen, and how the law treats them, matters for every Marylander who rides.

The Turn a Driver Never Completes Safely

When Riders Go Down Together, Sorting Out Fault in a Group Motorcycle Crash

June 29, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Riding in a group is part of what draws many people to motorcycles. There is visibility in numbers, and there is the simple pleasure of sharing the road with friends. That sense of safety is what makes it so jarring when the danger comes from inside the group itself. Before dawn on June 22, 2026, two motorcyclists were riding together on Norbeck Road in Rockville when their bikes made contact. Both riders lost control. One of them, a 20-year-old man, left the roadway and died at the scene, while the other rider walked away unhurt.

How Close-Formation Riding Turns Risky

Experienced riders hold a staggered formation, with each motorcycle offset in the lane and a cushion of space front to back, precisely so that a small mistake by one rider does not become a crash for another. When that spacing collapses, even slight contact between handlebars, mirrors, or wheels can throw a rider into a wobble that is nearly impossible to recover at speed. Darkness, fatigue, alcohol, and unfamiliar roads all shrink a rider’s margin for error. A bike that drifts a few inches can clip the rider beside it, and motorcyclists have nothing between their bodies and the pavement, curbs, and fixed objects waiting at the edge of the road.

The Legal Questions a Rider-on-Rider Crash Raises

A crash between two members of the same riding group does not fit the usual template of a motorcycle case against a careless car driver. Fault may rest with one rider, with both, or with a road defect or outside vehicle that forced the contact. Maryland follows contributory negligence, a strict rule that can bar recovery for an injured person found even slightly responsible for their own harm, which makes a careful reconstruction of those final seconds critical. When the at-fault rider is a friend, families sometimes hesitate to pursue a claim, not realizing that compensation usually comes from an insurance policy rather than out of a companion’s pocket.

Left-Turn Crashes and Why Maryland Riders Keep Paying the Price During Motorcycle Safety Month

May 28, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

If a driver turned left across your path and changed your life, you are not alone, and the blame may not belong where the police report puts it.

Every May, Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration opens Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month with a sobering statistic that most riders already feel in their bones. Motorcyclists are only a small share of the people injured on Maryland roads — about 2.4 percent — but they make up nearly 10 percent of all fatal traffic crashes. You ride with less between you and danger than the drivers around you, and the numbers have never let any of us forget it.

Behind that disparity sits a crash pattern that almost every Maryland rider has seen, dreaded, or experienced: the left-turn collision. You are traveling straight through an intersection or down a roadway with the right of way. A driver coming the other direction turns left across your path, often because they did not see you or misjudged your speed. Your bike hits the turning vehicle, and you are thrown. In Southern Maryland this spring, that exact scenario played out in fatal fashion when an SUV failed to yield at a left turn and struck a rider.

After Three Fatal Maryland Motorcycle Crashes in April, How Rider Speed Becomes an Insurance Argument

April 30, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Three Maryland riders did not come home in April 2026.

On April 4, a man was thrown from his motorcycle on I-370 in Gaithersburg and pronounced dead at the scene despite aggressive life-saving efforts by Montgomery County Fire and Rescue.

On April 7, a motorcyclist died at the intersection of Manor Road and Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase after a crash with a car around 6:14 a.m. The driver of the car was hospitalized with minor injuries.

When a Motorcycle Brake Recall Does Not Fix the Problem

March 28, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Ducati’s February 2026 recall report stands out for one reason in particular: it followed an earlier recall campaign. According to the NHTSA filing, Ducati had already launched a prior recall solution in early 2025, but later received a field report of rear brake malfunction after that fix had been applied. The new campaign supersedes the earlier recall.

That makes this a strong motorcycle crash story, not just a product bulletin. When a manufacturer issues a second recall after a first repair effort did not fully solve the problem, riders are left with an unsettling question: what should have happened differently before the motorcycle went back on the road?

For Maryland riders, the answer matters because braking problems on a motorcycle do not leave much room for correction. A driver in a car may have some ability to compensate for a mechanical issue. A rider dealing with reduced or lost rear braking while slowing, cornering, or reacting to traffic can face a far narrower margin for survival.

Maryland Laws, Common Injuries, and Your Right to Compensation After a Motorcycle Accident

February 24, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Motorcycle riders in Prince George’s County face serious risks every time they share the road with cars, trucks, and SUVs on the Capital Beltway, Route 301, and Route 4. When a collision occurs, the motorcyclist almost always suffers the worst injuries — broken bones, road rash, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord damage are common outcomes. Maryland law provides a path to compensation for injured riders, but the state’s contributory negligence rule creates an obstacle that other states do not impose. Lebowitz & Mzhen Personal Injury Lawyers has represented motorcycle accident victims across Prince George’s County and throughout Maryland for nearly 30 years, recovering over $90 million for injured clients.

What Are the Most Common Causes of Motorcycle Accidents in Prince George’s County?

Most motorcycle accidents in Maryland are caused by the negligence of another driver rather than the rider. The most frequent causes of motorcycle crashes in Prince George’s County include left-turn collisions where a car turns into an oncoming motorcycle, rear-end collisions at intersections, lane-change accidents where a driver fails to check blind spots, dooring incidents in urban areas like Hyattsville and College Park, and road hazard crashes caused by potholes, debris, or uneven pavement.

Left Turn Collision Kills Motorcyclist In Early Morning Crash

January 29, 2026 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

An early-morning crash involving a left turn can turn deadly in seconds, especially when a motorcycle is involved. In a report out of Texas, police said a car traveling south tried to turn left into a parking lot while a motorcycle traveled northbound, and the collision threw the rider from the bike. The motorcyclist later died from his injuries, and police said the investigation remains ongoing.

This happened outside Maryland, but the crash pattern is familiar on Maryland roads. Left-turn collisions are one of the most common ways drivers and riders get seriously hurt, and families often end up dealing with grief while also trying to understand who was at fault and how insurance handles a loss like this.

Why Left Turns Cause So Many Serious Crashes