Shreveport cyclists get hit on Line Avenue and Youree Drive, on Kings Highway, and on the neighborhood streets that feed into them, and the rider is taken to Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport on Kings Highway, Willis-Knighton, or CHRISTUS Highland. The Shreveport Police Department writes the crash report inside the city limits, and the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office handles the roads outside them. A Caddo Parish suit is filed and tried at the Caddo Parish Courthouse on Texas Street, in the First Judicial District Court. Trey Morris Injury Lawyers is at 509 Milam Street, across the street from that courthouse. In the first week we pull the crash report, photograph the lane and the point of impact, look for any camera on the block, and send the driver’s insurer a preservation letter.
The law that governs a bicycle claim is Louisiana law, and it reads the same in Caddo Parish as anywhere else in the state. Louisiana classifies a bicycle as a vehicle under La. R.S. 32:194, so the lane you rode in was yours. A rider hurt on or after July 1, 2024 has two years under La. C.C. Art. 3493.1 to file. We build a Shreveport bicycle claim outward from those lane rights, before the insurer reaches for your helmet status or for Art. 2323 to push you past the 51% bar.
Results for Louisiana Clients
- $49 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
An impaired driver of a stolen vehicle driving the wrong way collided with our client head-on, resulting in brain injury and multiple broken bones.
- $12.1 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
A commercial vehicle failed to stop at a red light subsequently crashing into our client causing serious brain injury and permanent loss of function.
- $7 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
When the other vehicle struck our client, the result was a major hemorrhage and a stroke.
- $6.2 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
A fatigued commercial-vehicle driver fell asleep at the wheel and rear-ended our client, leaving our client with severe neck and back injuries.
- $3 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
Out on the highway, the at-fault driver hit our client.
- $2.9 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
Our client was rear-ended by the other driver and seriously injured.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; each case is decided on its own facts.
Bicycle Accident Injuries in Shreveport
A car spends the crash on the driver’s behalf. Steel, crumple zones, airbags. On a bicycle your body does that work. That gap is why a rider clipped at low speed on Youree Drive comes out far worse than anyone in the car.
TBI
Traumatic Brain Injury is a blow or jolt to the head that disrupts how the brain works, from concussion to permanent damage. A helmet lowers the risk. It was never engineered for the force of a vehicle.
The injuries we see most after a Shreveport bicycle crash are traumatic brain injury, spinal cord damage, broken collarbones and wrists, pelvic fractures, road rash deep enough to need grafting, and internal bleeding. Riders are killed in collisions that barely mark the car, because the force difference between a two-ton vehicle and an unprotected body does not shrink with the speedometer.
Medical bills on a serious bicycle injury routinely run past $100,000, and spinal cord or brain trauma cases reach into the millions once a lifetime of care is priced out. There is more on brain trauma claims, broken bone injury claims, and spine trauma claims. Trey Morris Injury Lawyers has handled catastrophic injury cases in all of them for more than 25 years.
Call the records line this week wherever they took you, the Level I trauma center at Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport on Kings Highway, Willis-Knighton, CHRISTUS Highland, and ask for the complete chart and the imaging, not the discharge summary.
Local Office. Statewide Record.
- Across the street
From the 1st JDC
Our 509 Milam St office sits across the street from the First Judicial District Court, where Shreveport injury suits are filed and tried.
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Trial attorneys, one team
Your case is handled by the firm's own trial attorneys, and we respond in minutes, 24/7.
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We come to you
Hospital, home, or the office at 509 Milam St. Free case review, and no fee unless we win.
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Cases resolved over $1 million
Verdicts and settlements of $1 million or more, won by the same trial team that handles Shreveport cases.
How Bicycle Accidents Happen in Shreveport
Under La. R.S. 32:194, you have the same right to the road as the pickup behind you. A cyclist in the travel lane is a lawful road user, not an obstruction. Most crashes here come down to a motorist who did not look, did not yield, or decided the lane was theirs alone.
The patterns in Caddo Parish repeat: distracted driving, meaning texting, phone calls, and in-car screens; failure to yield at intersections on Market Street, Kings Highway, and Line Avenue; unsafe lane changes; and vehicles running inside marked bike lanes. Impaired drivers show up far out of proportion in cyclist fatality cases. Speed strips away the reaction time the driver needed, so a rider in plain view has no chance at all.
Cause decides what we go get. A distracted driving case runs on cell phone records. An impaired driving case runs on toxicology and breathalyzer data.
Common Crash Types by Mechanism
Rear-end. A motorist traveling too fast strikes a rider from behind, usually at dusk or after dark on a road with poor lighting. The cyclist gets no warning.
Dooring. Someone in a parked car swings a door into your path without checking the mirror or the blind spot. There is no reaction time, which is why dooring injuries are so often severe. Louisiana puts the liability on the person who opened the door.
Right hook. A driver turns right across your path at an intersection or driveway, the most common urban pattern there is. Left cross: an oncoming driver turns left across a rider going straight, usually at a faster crossing speed. Sideswipe: a passing motorist clips you while changing lanes or squeezing by, and Louisiana sets a minimum safe lateral clearance for that pass. Failure to yield at four-way stops and signalized intersections accounts for a large share of city cyclist injuries.
Write down today which of those five your crash was, and the direction each vehicle was traveling. That one sentence tells us which records to demand first.
Louisiana Bicycle Laws and How They Affect Your Claim
Louisiana gives cyclists particular rights and particular obligations. Insurers know the obligations better than most riders do, and they use any gap to shave your number down.
Start with the helmet, because it comes up in nearly every adjuster call. Louisiana requires a helmet only for riders under age 12 (La. R.S. 32:199.1). An adult riding bare-headed is not automatically negligent, and helmet non-use is not prima facie evidence of negligence. The adjuster will raise it anyway.
Comparative Fault
Comparative fault is the rule that cuts what you collect by your share of the blame, and Louisiana applies it under La. C.C. Art. 2323. As of January 1, 2026, a rider found 51% or more at fault collects nothing. At 50% or less, your damages drop by your percentage, and a motorist found 90% at fault still owes 90% of your damages even where you carry part of it. The entire defense is built on moving your number across that line.
Prescriptive Period
Prescriptive period is the Louisiana term for the filing deadline. For personal injury it runs two years from the date of injury under La. C.C. Art. 3493.1, effective July 1, 2024. Miss it and you lose the right to collect anything, no matter how plainly the driver was at fault. Settlement talk has a way of eating months, so put the date on a calendar you actually look at.
Road Sharing Rules
A driver has to treat you as a lawful road user for the whole trip. Vehicles may not drive in a marked bicycle lane except to cross at an intersection or reach a driveway (La. R.S. 32:197), and breaking that prohibition is evidence of negligence. Passing carries its own duty: Louisiana requires a safe lateral clearance when a motorist overtakes a bicycle, and coming inside that distance is a statutory violation. If the car that hit you was riding the bike lane, or buzzed you on the pass while you rode lawfully, that is direct support for your liability case.
Dooring Law
Louisiana prohibits opening a vehicle door into active traffic, and the person who opens it owns the collision. The question is whether they used due care before the door swung, and in practice almost nobody checks a mirror before stepping out onto Texas Street.
If you were doored, preserve the door, the car, and the physical evidence at the scene. Photographs of where the door sat and where your bike struck it carry these cases, which turn on whether the occupant knew or should have known a rider was coming.
Lighting and Visibility Requirements
Riding at night, Louisiana requires a white front light visible from 500 feet and a red rear reflector or light (La. R.S. 32:329). Defense attorneys raise lighting violations as comparative fault whenever the equipment was short. The question is whether the lighting caused anything. A missing rear reflector does not cause a wreck where the driver ran the red light.
Louisiana ranks among the most dangerous states in the country for cyclists, a product of road conditions and how little protected bike infrastructure got built here. That matters when a defendant argues you took the risk onto yourself by riding that road.
Get the bike and helmet somewhere nobody will clean, repair, or discard them this week, and photograph the light and reflector you were running.
Shreveport Practice Areas
Car AccidentsRear-end, intersection, and highway collisions across Louisiana.
Truck Accidents18-wheeler and commercial-vehicle wrecks governed by federal trucking rules.
Catastrophic InjuryBrain, spinal-cord, amputation, and severe-burn injuries that change a life.
Wrongful DeathClaims brought by families after a fatal accident or act of negligence.
Premises LiabilitySlip-and-fall and unsafe-property injuries on someone else's premises.
Product LiabilityInjuries caused by defective or unreasonably dangerous products.
Oilfield AccidentsDrilling, pipeline, and refinery injuries across the energy sector.
Industrial AccidentsPlant, warehouse, and heavy-equipment injuries in industrial settings.
Offshore AccidentsRig, platform, and vessel injuries beyond the shoreline.
What to Do After a Bicycle Accident in Shreveport
What you do in the first hours moves the claim more than anything later. In order:
Call 911 and stay until law enforcement arrives. The report is the spine of the claim. It fixes the scene, collects the driver’s information, and sometimes records the officer’s read on fault. Do not skip it because the driver asks you to.
See a doctor the same day, even when nothing feels broken. Concussions and internal injuries hide for a day or two. A gap in treatment is the first thing the defense points at to argue the injury came from something else. Your first medical record ties it to the crash.
Leave the bicycle and the debris where they lie if you can do it safely. The scene is evidence. Photograph vehicle positions, road conditions, skid marks, signage, bike lane markings, the vehicle that struck you, and your injuries. Get the driver’s name, license plate, insurance carrier, and policy number before anyone drives off. Take witness names and phone numbers, because witnesses scatter fast.
Do not give the at-fault driver’s insurance company a recorded statement without a lawyer. Adjusters are trained to collect statements that shrink the payout, and you owe nobody one. Keep the bicycle and gear as they are. Do not repair or discard the bike, the helmet, or the clothing, because the damage on them establishes impact geometry.
Talk to a lawyer before you accept any offer. Early offers land far below what the claim is worth, and taking one usually ends your right to ask for more when the next surgery gets scheduled.
Put the crash date, the responding agency, and the driver’s insurer on one sheet of paper this week. Give us the date and the names and we will pull the report.
Establishing Motorist Negligence
Negligence has four parts: duty, breach, causation, damages. Every Louisiana motorist owes a duty of care to everyone else using the road, you on a bicycle included. The work sits in what the driver did or failed to do.
Police reports, traffic camera footage, dashcam video, and eyewitness accounts are the first layer. Reconstruction experts establish pre-impact speed, angle of impact, and what the driver was doing in the seconds before. Cell phone records confirm phone use at the moment of impact. Breathalyzer and toxicology results are discoverable where impairment is suspected.
Failure to yield at a marked crosswalk or intersection is negligence per se under Louisiana traffic statutes. The violation itself establishes negligence, with no separate proof that the conduct was unreasonable.
Traffic camera and business surveillance video is often written over within 24 to 72 hours. Trey Morris Injury Lawyers sends evidence preservation demands within 24 hours of taking a case. There is more on how we investigate injury cases.
Types of Evidence We Gather
Footage from the intersection camera and the businesses facing it disappears within days unless somebody asks in writing. Dashcam video from the at-fault vehicle, or from a car two lengths back, shows the seconds before impact.
EDR
An event data recorder is the module in a modern vehicle that stores pre-impact speed, braking force, and steering input for the seconds before a crash. Most people call it the black box. Manufacturers set retention as short as 30 days, so it is a race.
EDR data gives us the driver’s speed and whether a foot ever touched the brake. Carrier data establishes phone use at the time of the crash. Reconstruction pins down speed, sight lines, and impact geometry. Medical records and imaging tie your injuries to the crash mechanism, which matters because the defense attacks causation hardest on the worst injuries.
If a business camera on the corner might have caught it, walk in this week, ask the manager in writing to save the footage, and tell us where you went.
Damages You Can Recover After a Shreveport Bicycle Accident
Louisiana sorts damages into two categories, economic and non-economic.
Economic damages are the losses with paper behind them: the ambulance, hospitalization, surgery, rehabilitation, the paychecks you missed, the earning capacity you lose going forward. Where the impairment is permanent, future care gets priced and reduced to present value by an economist, not estimated on a legal pad.
Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, and disfigurement. They are harder to quantify, which is exactly why insurers negotiate them the hardest.
The 2020 tort reform changed the Louisiana collateral source rule. In some circumstances your medical damages are limited to the amount actually paid rather than the amount billed. That changes how damages get presented and how a settlement number should be built.
On long-term and permanent injuries we bring in medical experts and economic analysts before anyone talks numbers, because a future loss that is not documented before settlement cannot be collected afterward.
Wrongful Death Action
If the crash killed the rider, the surviving family brings a wrongful death action under La. C.C. Art. 2315.2. It is the family’s own claim for the family’s own losses: the financial support that stopped, the companionship, the funeral costs. There is more in wrongful death claims in Shreveport.
Start one folder this week for every bill, explanation of benefits, and pay stub since the crash. That folder is what the damages number gets built from.
What Shreveport Clients Say
- Emma Dvorak
I was overwhelmed dealing with everything after my injury, but their team took a lot of the pressure off of me.They were patient, answered all my questions, and made sure I understood what was happening.
- Diane Didier
I was recommended to Trey Morris by a friend, and they have been amazing!They kept me up to date with all the details of my case. I was in the loop during the entire process. Having to go over the details my accident was so uncomfortable, but they were so understanding and made every effort to make the entire process as smooth as possible. I would highly recommend Trey Morris and his team to anyone.
- Laurie Shearin
I'll always appreciate the way I was treated here.I felt heard, respected and taken care of from beginning to end.
- Zachary Krengle
Trey Morris and the team treated me so well after my accident.Beyond taking the steps to make sure my case was taken care of timely and apropiatelly. They listened and made me feel like I was a priority to them and not just another client. I hope none of my friends are put in a situation to need them, but if they do I would highly suggest Trey Morris and the team.
- Valorie Schneider
Really glad I chose Trey Morris Injury Law.They were easy to work with and made sure I understood what was going on.
- Alayna Cantrell
I would recommend Trey Morris to my friends and family.Trey Morris & the team there helped me with my case. The firm is amazing!
- Sunshine Halpert
This is the firm you want handling your car accident.Trey Morris Injury Lawyers is the best. Jessica, Seth, and Brian handled my case quickly. They kept me up to date and infor ed the whole time. I will send everyone I know to you guys. Thanks so much!
- Alyx Braud
My mans Trey Trey got it done!All the people at the firm were super friendly and they really made me feel like they cared about my case as much as I did. It didn't take too long and I got my settlement 🤑
- Raley Snead
I had a great experience with Morris Injury Attorneys.Everyone is professional, responsive, and kept me / my loved ones updated throughout the entire process. They made everything easy to understand and handled our cases quickly. I'm really pleased with the outcome and would definitely recommend them to anyone who needs a good injury attorney.
- Annabelle Lee
Trey morris injury lawyers handled my case with the utmost professionalism.I will definitely be recommending to any friends and family!!
- Lindsie Waguespack
Trey Morris Injury lawyers handled my claim with so much professionalism!Thank yall for everything!!
- LAM Rogers
Trey Morris and his team were the only attorneys i needed to call.After I was in an accident they helped my case and got me a settlement I am very happy with. They were very professional. I recommend them highly. Thank you to the whole office at Tray Morris.
How Trey Morris Injury Lawyers Handles Your Bicycle Accident Claim
Contingency Fee
We take these cases on a contingency fee: our fee is a percentage of what you collect, and there is no attorney fee at all if you collect nothing. Nothing is owed up front. The first evaluation is free, and it costs nothing to sit down and find out whether you have a claim.
Once you hire us, we demand preservation of surveillance footage, police reports, and physical evidence, then work out who else is on the hook besides the driver. Their employer, if they were working. A government entity, if a road defect contributed. A manufacturer, if a part failed. Every additional defendant is another insurance policy to reach.
We build the damages number with medical experts and economists before anybody talks settlement. Once you accept, there is no going back for the second surgery or the years of care behind it, so the number has to be right the first time.
UM/UIM
UM/UIM is the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in your own auto policy, and it pays when the driver who hit you carries nothing or too little. Louisiana requires insurers to offer it. It reaches a bicycle crash too, which surprises most riders.
We handle every call with the at-fault driver’s insurer and with your own UM/UIM carrier. You do not talk to adjusters. If the insurer will not pay a fair number, we file in Caddo Parish District Court at 501 Texas Street, across from our office, and try the case. Someone here answers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We have verdicts and settlements across personal injury case types, motor vehicle collisions included. Our case results are public, and the rest of what we handle here is listed under Shreveport injury lawyers.
Pull the declarations page for every vehicle in your household this week and check whether UM/UIM was accepted or rejected, and at what limits. That page often decides how much there is to collect.
Your Shreveport Trial Team
The lawyers who work your file. Every Shreveport case is handled by the firm's own trial attorneys.
Why Bicycle Accident Claims Are Different From Car Accident Claims
Insurers do not treat a bicycle file the way they treat a car file. The injuries are worse, so the claim draws more scrutiny, and liability gets disputed more often, because the first move is almost always to argue the rider had no business in the road.
Damages are harder to pin down when the injury is catastrophic and permanent. Medical lien resolution gets tangled when the health insurer, the hospital, and the ambulance service all hold claims against the same settlement.
We have the trial record and the resources to take a Caddo Parish bicycle case the whole distance, whether it ends at 501 Texas Street or, for a crash across the Red River, at the 26th Judicial District Court in Benton. Call with the date, the location, and the driver’s name, and we will start with the crash report and the policy limits.