Michigan Pedestrian and Bicycle Accident Wrongful Death Lawyer

A person on foot or on a bicycle has no steel frame and no airbag between them and a driver who fails to look. Michigan lost 156 pedestrians and 29 bicyclists in traffic crashes in 2024, according to Michigan State Police crash data, and bicyclist deaths rose 21 percent in a single year. Nationally, federal data for 2023 show a pedestrian killed in a traffic crash roughly every 72 minutes.

Vahdat Weisman Law represents Michigan families after fatal pedestrian and bicycle crashes. These cases follow a pattern we have learned to expect: the driver describes a person who “came out of nowhere,” and the insurance company begins looking for reasons the victim was at fault. Answering that with evidence, quickly, is most of the job. Call (734) 469-4994 for a free, confidential consultation, any hour. You pay no attorney fee unless we recover compensation for your family.

The Case Is Built on Evidence, Starting Now

In a fatal pedestrian or bicycle crash, your loved one cannot give their account, so the driver’s version often stands alone unless someone tests it. That is why we treat these as reconstruction cases from the first days: intersection, business, and doorbell camera footage before systems overwrite it, sometimes within days; the vehicle’s event data recorder; skid and debris patterns; lighting and sight-line measurements; phone records that bear on driver distraction; and witness statements taken while memories are fresh.

That work matters because of how Michigan allocates fault. A victim found more than 50 percent at fault recovers no non-economic damages, and any percentage of fault assigned to your loved one reduces the remaining award proportionally. Expect the defense to raise the familiar arguments: dark clothing, crossing mid-block, headphones, a bicycle without a light. In 2024, about a third of Michigan’s pedestrian deaths involved crossing outside an intersection, and insurers treat that statistic as though it decided fault. It does not. Where someone crossed says nothing about whether the driver was speeding, distracted, or simply not looking, and fault percentages are usually questions for a jury, decided on evidence.

What Michigan Law Requires of Drivers

Michigan law protects people on foot and on bikes in specific ways, and it has gaps families deserve to know about, because defense lawyers certainly do.

At signalized intersections, MCL 257.612 requires drivers to yield to pedestrians and bicyclists lawfully within the intersection or an adjacent crosswalk, including before turning on a green light or turning right on red. Michigan’s passing law, MCL 257.636, requires drivers to pass a bicycle at a distance of at least three feet. Bicyclists riding on the roadway generally carry the rights and duties of vehicle drivers, and a cyclist lawfully in a crosswalk is generally treated like a pedestrian there, a distinction that can shape the whole fault analysis.

The gap: Michigan has no single statewide statute requiring drivers to yield to pedestrians at every crosswalk. In the many communities that have adopted the Uniform Traffic Code by local ordinance, that yield duty exists, but which rules applied to your loved one’s crash can depend on the ordinances of the city or township where it happened. We confirm the local rules in every case. And beyond any specific statute, every driver owes a duty of reasonable care, which includes actually looking for the people lawfully sharing the road.

No-Fault Benefits Apply, Even Though Your Loved One Was Not in a Car

Grieving families are often told, or assume, that no-fault benefits only exist for people in vehicles. Michigan law says otherwise. A pedestrian or bicyclist killed by a motor vehicle is generally entitled to no-fault benefits, even if they did not own a car.

Since Michigan’s 2019 insurance reform, the priority order for people injured outside a vehicle is short. The claim goes first to your loved one’s own auto insurance policy, or the policy of a spouse or a relative living in the same household. If no such policy exists, the claim goes to the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan, the state’s assigned claims program for people with nowhere else to turn. This applies when a motor vehicle was involved; a solo bicycle crash caused by a road defect or equipment failure is a different kind of claim, without PIP benefits.

The benefits are significant in a death case. Survivor’s loss benefits under MCL 500.3108 replace financial support and household services for dependents for up to three years after the crash, capped at $7,201 per month for accidents from October 2025 through September 2026, a figure adjusted each year. Funeral and burial expenses are covered under MCL 500.3107, in an amount set by the policy between $1,750 and $5,000. The deadlines are strict: MCL 500.3145 requires written notice to the correct insurer within one year of the crash, and an Assigned Claims Plan application has its own one-year deadline. Identifying the right insurer and filing on time is one of the first things we do.

Hit-and-Run and Uninsured or Underinsured Drivers

When the driver flees or carries no insurance, the case changes shape, but it does not end. No-fault benefits remain available through the household policy or the Assigned Claims Plan. Beyond that, two kinds of optional coverage in the household’s own policies can carry the liability claim. Uninsured motorist coverage can stand in for a driver who fled and was never identified or who had no insurance. Underinsured motorist coverage matters just as often, because many Michigan drivers carry limits nowhere near the value of a wrongful death claim, and UIM coverage can make up part of the difference. Both are contract coverages with their own notice requirements, some shorter than any statute of limitations, so bring us every policy in the household early. We also work alongside police on hit-and-run identification, where camera canvasses, paint transfer, and vehicle debris regularly produce answers.

The Wrongful Death Case Against the Driver

Separate from no-fault benefits, the claim against the at-fault driver proceeds under Michigan’s wrongful death act, MCL 600.2922. Only the personal representative of your loved one’s estate can file it, and we handle the probate steps to open the estate and secure that appointment. Because a death satisfies Michigan’s injury threshold, the dispute centers on fault and damages: medical and funeral expenses, conscious pain and suffering where the evidence supports it, the loss of financial support the family depended on, and the family’s loss of society and companionship, which Michigan law does not cap in these cases.

The vehicle’s owner can be liable along with the driver under MCL 257.401 when the car was driven with the owner’s consent, and a driver working at the time may bring an employer’s commercial policy into the case, which we investigate in every claim. If the driver had been drinking at a bar or restaurant, a dram shop claim carries its own short notice requirements, explained on our drunk driving wrongful death page. The general filing deadline is three years under MCL 600.5805, and MCL 600.5852 can give a personal representative limited additional time in defined circumstances. The one-year no-fault notice and the camera footage run on much shorter clocks.

When a Broken Sidewalk or Road Defect Contributed

Some pedestrian and bicycle deaths trace in part to public infrastructure: a collapsed sidewalk, a defect in the road itself. Claims against cities, counties, and the state exist, but they pass through narrow exceptions to governmental immunity, and the rules differ by defect. For municipal sidewalks, MCL 691.1402a generally requires proof the city knew or should have known of the defect for at least 30 days, and a vertical break of two inches or more is evidence that helps overcome the statute’s presumption that the sidewalk was properly maintained. For roads, the state and counties are responsible only for the portion designed for vehicular travel, a limit that defeats many bicycle claims and has to be evaluated case by case.

Two deadlines make these claims urgent: MCL 691.1404 requires notice to the right governmental agency within 120 days, describing the exact location and nature of the defect and known witnesses, and highway-defect claims can carry a two-year limitations period rather than three. If there is any chance a public defect contributed, this is a call to make now rather than later.

What Should You Do Now?

Ask the police for the crash report number, and write down what you know about where and when it happened. Preserve your loved one’s clothing, bicycle, helmet, and phone exactly as they are; the bicycle carries impact evidence that cannot be recreated, so do not repair or release it. Note nearby businesses or homes that might have cameras. Gather every auto insurance policy in the household. Then let us take over the rest: the insurer notifications, the Assigned Claims Plan filing, the camera preservation letters, and any governmental notice.

Why Choose Vahdat Weisman Law?

Families in these cases need two things at once: a firm that moves immediately on evidence, and a firm that will tell them the truth about fault, coverage, and what their facts support. We reconstruct the crash rather than accepting the driver’s account; we know the no-fault rules that apply to people outside vehicles, and we track every deadline in the case, from the one-year no-fault notice to the 120-day governmental clock to the notice provisions buried in UM and UIM policies. We explain each step in plain language, in English or Spanish, for families across Michigan, from Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties to every corner of the state.

Founding partners Kara E. Weisman and Jordan S. Vahdat have each been honored as Super Lawyers Rising Stars, and our attorneys are members of the State Bar of Michigan and active in the Michigan Association for Justice. We advance case costs, and our phones are answered 24/7. Our main wrongful death page explains how Michigan fatal injury claims work generally.

Frequently Asked Questions

• The driver says my mother stepped out in front of him. Is the case over? No. The driver’s account is where the investigation starts, not where it ends. Event data recorders, camera footage, sight-line analysis, and witness statements regularly tell a fuller story. Even where a pedestrian shares some fault, Michigan law reduces damages by percentage; fault above 50 percent bars non-economic damages, and that finding is contested on the evidence.
• My son was killed riding his bike and did not own a car. Are there really no-fault benefits? Often, yes, when a motor vehicle was involved. The claim goes through a spouse’s or household relative’s auto policy, and if there is none, through the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan. Survivor’s loss and funeral benefits can follow. The one-year deadline is the trap, so find out what applies before it passes.
• The driver fled and was never caught. Who pays? No-fault benefits remain available through the household policy or the Assigned Claims Plan. If the household carried uninsured motorist coverage, it can substitute for the missing driver in the wrongful death claim, subject to the policy’s terms and deadlines, which can be short. Bring us the policies quickly, and we will map what exists.
• The sidewalk where my father fell into the road was crumbling. Can we sue the city? Possibly, through the sidewalk exception to governmental immunity, which requires proof the city had time to know about the defect. Notice generally must reach the agency within 120 days and describe the defect precisely, and the limitations period may be shorter than in an ordinary case. Ask early; this is the least forgiving corner of Michigan injury law.
• What does this cost our family? Nothing up front. The consultation is free, we advance case costs, and we collect a fee only if we recover compensation for your family.

Talk to a Michigan Pedestrian and Bicycle Wrongful Death Lawyer Today

Your family deserves answers built on evidence, not on the driver’s version of events. Call Vahdat Weisman Law at (734) 469-4994 or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation. Available 24/7, serving all of Michigan, with Spanish-speaking staff.

Dedicated to Justice. Devoted to You. Winning for Your Future.

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique, and prior results do not guarantee future success.