COLUMN ONE : Bicycle Lawyers on a Roll : Accidents have risen along with the sport’s popularity. A new breed of attorney is wheeling in to handle the claims.

Craig Holmes was pedaling south on Balboa Avenue in the Granada Hills area last year when he suddenly found himself flung off his expensive racing bike and into the world of bicycle accident litigation.

As the amateur marathon cyclist crossed the intersection of Rinaldi Street on the 20-mile commute to his job as a brewery supervisor, a car turned into the path of another car. The second driver decided it would be better to ram into the bike rather than to be hit by the other auto, Holmes said.

Holmes was dragged and bounced along the road for 80 feet. Rough pavement broke his glasses and skinned his lips, face and left side. “It was like somebody lighting me on fire, my clothes burned into my skin so I couldn’t even bleed,” he recalled.

It took $800 to repair his expensive racing bike, hundreds more to heal his own wounds. In the end, he won a generous out-of-court settlement with the driver’s insurance company.

More than 89 million Americans rode bicycles last year, many lured to the sport by the country’s fixation with health, flashy new bicycle technology and clothes and the star status of competing cyclists.

But while cycling has been elevated in status, so too has it become increasingly risky. More than 900 bicyclists were killed last year, including 138 in California. Another 500,000 ended up in hospital emergency rooms--suffering scrapes that cyclists call “road rash,” as well as dislocated shoulders, smashed knees, broken bones and brain injuries. Half of the victims are children under 16.

No one is sure how many bicycle claims are filed yearly, but some estimate that the figure is well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

As more and more bike riders collide on the streets with car-loving citizens, they call on a new breed of attorney to help them seek damages.

Known as bike lawyers, they specialize in bicycle law, advertise in bicycle magazines and ride to accident scenes on their own bikes to better understand the mechanics of the accident. Once in court, they call forth an array of product and safety experts who, in great detail, explain why the pedal fell off, why the wheel left its fork and why the bicyclist could not get out of the way.

Among the handful of Los Angeles bike attorneys is William Harris, whose first client seven years ago was his 14-year-old daughter, DeDe. She had been training for a national track championship when she was hit by a motorist turning left in front of her. The accident sidelined her from competition.

Harris said the insurance company wanted to treat the claim “like a run-of-the-mill whiplash case.” The first settlement offer was low, he said, but he received a better one when he established that she had lost the chance to compete.

In untangling the case, Harris found that “police, personal injury experts and insurance adjusters just didn’t understand the mechanics of bike accidents.” So Harris, who bicycles more than a 100 miles a week, began to advertise in bike magazines and was surprised by the large response. He receives about a dozen inquiries a week, most involving serious injuries.

“Bicyclers are often treated like second-class citizens, even though legally they have the same responsibilities and rights that motorists do,” Harris said. “Problems arise because motorists don’t know where they are supposed to be in relationship to bikers.”

The majority of accidents are the fault of motorists who do not understand or respect bicyclists’ rights, federal traffic safety experts say. But other accidents are caused by faulty equipment and poorly designed bike paths. Often, bicyclists themselves are their own enemy, failing to heed road rules or wear safety equipment.

Except for most freeways, where they are outlawed, bicyclers have the same access to the roads as do cars. They are required to ride with traffic and as far to the right as possible, except to pass slow-moving vehicles, avoid debris or when the lanes are substandard widths.

While attorneys for insurance companies argue that bicyclists have accidents because they break laws or are inexperienced, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics show that in most car-bicycle accidents involving riders over 16, the motorist usually is at fault. In those involving children under 16, however, the child usually is at fault.

A tactic of insurance companies, bike lawyers claim, is to zero in on the alleged negligence of bicyclists, asking why they weren’t wearing a helmet, weren’t acrobatic enough to avoid the collision, or by even trying to show that bicyclists are “weird people.”

Deborah Ryan, a Los Angeles-area toy designer, said that after her bicycle accident in Redondo Beach in 1985, she was chastised by police and given inadequate legal representation. Crossing the street with the light in a crosswalk, Ryan said she was hit by a motorist turning left. “I was airborne for at least 10 feet and landed on my knees. I had a concussion, neck and back injuries and ended up having surgery on both knees.”

While in the emergency room, Ryan said, the investigating police officer lectured her.

“His attitude was that bikes don’t belong on the streets and that I should have yielded to the car. He wrote up an unfavorable report, even though I had the right of way.”

The first attorney who handled her case, she said, didn’t understand how vehicle codes pertained to bicyclists. “I lost the case in non-binding arbitration because she didn’t explain that I was in the bike path when it happened.”

Bike lawyer Harris is now handling her case. She has had more than $15,000 in medical bills, has been unable to climb steps, has problems with her neck and jaw, and has been afraid to ride on the streets. “I keep reliving that accident,” she said.

Most lawsuits filed by injured bicyclists are settled out of court. The settlements often start at around $5,000 and work their way upward as the severity of the accident increases, some in the $250,000 range. Brain-injured bicyclists win the highest awards because lifetime care runs into the millions.

One of the largest awards was $8 million recently given to a Midwestern boy who suffered brain damage after falling from his bike when the wheel fell off on a railroad track.

“How to survive is becoming the bottom line,” said Alex LaRiviere, who has worked for the National Safety Council on bike safety and who investigates accidents for bicycle attorneys.

The second-generation owner of a San Jose bike store, LaRiviere said, “My father thinks someday all these investigations will do something to my mind. Already, I sometimes find it difficult to be a retailer and know that bicyclers are getting killed and mangled out there.” Such accidents are beginning to generate calls for safer equipment, more and better designed bike paths, and increased education for bicyclists and motorists. In one program, errant bicyclists in Palo Alto are ticketed and must attend traffic school. Most emphasis has been placed on helmets, which studies show could prevent 85% of all brain injuries.

One of the worst accidents occurred last year on the bicycle lane of U.S. 101 near the Gaviota rest stop in Santa Barbara County. Five members of a race team had just completed a 60-mile training ride in the early morning and were returning home when a drunk driver crossed the white line separating cars from bikes and slammed into the group.

Harold (Chip) Wessburg, a triathlete and race team coach, was killed. Ken Foraker, a highly ranked racer, lost a leg, and others received minor injuries. Recently a jury found Douglas Bishop, 57, guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Gary Brustin, a Los Angeles bike lawyer, said bicyclists not only face accidental injuries, but are sometimes even assaulted by angry motorists. “In Mississippi, someone threw a whiskey bottle at a bicyclist and cracked his head open,” Brustin said.

Brustin, like many bike lawyers, is an avid bicyclist himself. He has ridden for 25 years and recently bought his “dream bike”--a Fuso--custom made by Southern California bike designer Dave Moulton. He also sponsors several bike racers and lectures on bike safety.

“Part of what I do in court is to get adequate compensation, but I’m also trying to impart the message to the motoring public that cyclists aren’t going to take it any more.”

Cindy Staiger of Los Angeles has fought them on the streets and in the courts.

Staiger, who logs thousands of miles a year on her bicycle, had qualified for the grueling transcontinental Race Across America in 1987 when she was hit on her bicycle at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon in Pacific Palisades.

“I was going about 12 m.p.h. and had proceeded through the intersection with the green light,” she recalled. “I saw the car sitting at the red light. The driver looked right at me. But the next thing I know, she puts on the gas and runs into my bike. I go head over the bike and skid down the road on my helmet.”

Staiger competed in the race that year, but didn’t finish. The next year, she won the 3,063-mile race with a time of 12 days, 3 hours and 55 minutes. She also won her lawsuit. In another incident she recalled, “ I was coming down Palos Verdes Drive when a guy in a black Porsche with a little boy in the car kept honking his horn,” she said. “I pulled as far to the right as possible, but he roars around me screaming. Then he hits his brakes on purpose and I had to go around him down the center line bumps to keep from running into him. He goes around me again and hits the brakes again.

“Well, something just broke in me. At the stop light, I caught up with him. He had an open sunroof. Guess where my water bottle went?”

Sometimes, it’s the bicycle pathway that harms the bicyclist.

The Los Angeles River Bike Trail near Paramount used to wind down to the riverbed at a spot where water pooled. A bicyclist, riding the path for the first time, slipped in the algae and crashed. He obtained a settlement and the bikeway was eventually rerouted to avoid the water.

Sometimes, bicyclists say, the paths are not policed to keep them clear of obstacles.

“I even saw a lady lay her baby down on the path to change its diaper,” said Frederick Bodner, a 31-year-old Santa Monica mountain biker. Once, a leashed dog lunged and hit his riding partner’s bike, sending him flying and bending the back wheel. But his worst experience, Bodner said, occurred on the Venice bike path where a shop had set up a kite for an advertisement and the string strayed across the path.

“I felt the string pull down into my sunglasses, obscuring my vision,” he recalled. “It cut my head, ripped my arm, slashed my jersey. I thought I was going to be decapitated.”

Bicyclists are not only pressing for safer pathways, they have argued for better equipment.

“With new equipment coming out all the time, you get new injuries. You never know what is going to happen next,” said bike lawyer Mace Simon of Los Angeles, who rides to accident sites on his own bike so that he can get a better idea of what happened.

Product liability cases are on the upswing partly because of the popularity of mountain bikes and the lightweight materials used by manufacturers, attorneys said. Simon noted that there have been several recent cases involving breakage of the handlebar stem when bikers add extension bars out front to place themselves in a more aerodynamic position.

Suing foreign bicycle makers for product liability is often a long and expensive task, said bike lawyer Harris. Unlike American firms, foreign companies are less likely to approve out-of-court settlements, and are willing to spend endless money to go to trial, bike lawyers say.

Bill Spiller, a Los Angeles attorney whose firm often defends bike manufacturers, says that there is one product liability claim for every 10,000 bicycles produced.

He contends that many suits brought by bicyclists are unwarranted and the result of “user error and lack of common sense.” He said that given the “litigious nature” of consumers, he expects claims to soon increase to one claim for every 2,000 bikes produced.

In one case, he noted, a woman was sitting on the handlebars of a bike being ridden by her husband. The bike hit a rut and she flew off, landed on her head and died two days later. The spouse filed a $6-million suit against the company for failing to place a warning on the bike against riding on the handlebars. Spiller said he was able to extricate his client from the suit, which is still pending against the city of St. Joseph, Mich.

Safety experts believe that serious injuries could drop significantly if more riders would wear helmets.

Almost all bicycle-related deaths are caused by head injuries. Of the 500,000 bike accident victims admitted to emergency rooms each year, more than half suffer head injuries.

“There is this perception that bicycles are cute toys. You can fall off a bike in your driveway and lie there and die from a devastating head injury because you didn’t have a helmet on,” said David Thom, a research associate at USC’s Department of Safety Science.

Thom noted that good helmets have been available to consumers since 1984 when the American National Standards Institute came up with industry standards, but many bicyclists refuse to wear them because they consider them hot and uncomfortable.

Three years ago, the U.S. Cycling Federation made helmets mandatory for sanctioned races. In most foreign races, including the Tour de France, helmets are not usually worn. American Greg LeMond, who won the race last year, gave helmets a boost by wearing one.

Richard L. Stalnaker, an engineering professor at Ohio State University, is doing helmet studies for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He said the ideal helmet is one that absorbs energy of the impact and disintegrates, leaving the rider protected.

However, this concept is often lost on the juries hearing bike cases.

“If a jury sees a helmet that went through an accident without a scratch, they think, ‘Gee, it must be a good helmet,”’ Stalnaker said. “If they see one torn up they say, ‘No wonder he’s dead.’ But in reality, the helmet only remains in good condition if it doesn’t absorb enough energy and, instead, passes it on to the victim’s head.”

Says Stalnaker: “It’s easier to make helmets better than to make autos friendlier.”