Defining “Minor” Injuries
- Insurance Classifications: Insurance companies often use the term “minor” for soft tissue injuries, sprains, or strains that do not involve broken bones or surgery [01:41].
- Personal Impact: Despite the “minor” label, these injuries can cause significant pain and disruption to a person’s daily life [02:22].
The Risks of Leaving Injuries Untreated
- Worsening Symptoms: What starts as minor soreness or a headache can escalate into a severe issue requiring extensive treatment if ignored [03:01].
- Insurance Company Arguments: Waiting to seek medical help allows insurance companies to argue the injury wasn’t serious, as they claim seriously injured people go to the doctor immediately [04:01].
- Recovery Delays: Delays in treatment mean missing critical time for physical therapy and strengthening to prevent reinjury [03:40].
Recommended Steps After an Accident
- Immediate Medical Evaluation: Even if you feel okay, you should be checked by a doctor or urgent care immediately to establish a medical record and determine if follow-up care is needed [04:48].
- Legal Consultation: Contacting a firm like LegalRideshare helps establish claims with insurance companies to hold responsible parties accountable [06:22].
Seeking Compensation
- Medical Costs and Lost Wages: Legal assistance can help recover the costs of medical treatment and compensation for work missed due to the accident [06:35].
- Non-Economic Damages: Compensation can be sought for pain, suffering, and “loss of normal life” — even if the injury is temporary and only lasts a few months [07:20].
- Impact on Daily Life: This includes the inability to perform routine tasks, such as exercising, helping family members, or participating in hobbies [08:38].
[00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, drivers, gig workers, and everyone in between. Welcome to This Week in Rideshare Podcast. I’m your host, Jared Hoffa. It is Friday, April 17th, and this week we are talking about injuries and how minor injuries can cause major issues. And as always, LegalRideshare breaks it down.
[00:00:28] And from LegalRideshare, I’m joined by the co-founder and lead attorney, Bryant Greening. Bryant, happy beautiful Friday.
[00:00:37] (Bryant): Happy Friday, Jared. Great to be back. Glad to be doing a special episode today. A little bit of different information, but hopefully really valuable for our viewers and listeners.
[00:00:48] (Jared): Yeah, you know, it’s been a minute since we’ve done this and I think it’s important that we always re-emphasize that we are here to help with accidents and injuries. And you know, actually, I spent a lot of time in Chicago hopping in and out of Ubers this week and had a lot of questions from drivers. So I thought, hey, why not hop on with Bryant on this week in rideshare and we knock out the questions that they had and what they should do.
[00:01:13] (Jared): All right, so here we go. And let’s start off with the basics here. And again, this is really focused on minor injuries. So Bryant, tell me what defines a minor injury after a rideshare accident?
[00:01:26] (Bryant): Yeah, so it’s interesting that you’re using the word “minor” because every injury is major to the person that sustains it. And I think a lot of times what happens is insurance companies try to designate injuries as minor or severe, or they might use words like “soft tissue” versus “fractures” or “broken bones.” They’re trying to put different classifications on these injuries that occur in rideshare accidents.
[00:01:58] (Bryant): So it’s important for us to define minor — and I put that in quotes — based on what the insurance company might try to designate an injury as such. We talk about soft tissue injuries, sprains, strains… things that don’t involve fractures or typically would not require surgery. That’s what an insurance company would say is minor, even though it’s likely to cause significant pain and significant disruption in a person’s life who sustains that sort of injury.
[00:02:30] (Jared): Yeah, and that really leads me to my next question here… Can minor injuries turn into something major if untreated? A lot of drivers call us and passengers and say, “Yeah, I feel a little sore,” or “Yeah, I have a headache, my neck hurts, but I’m not that bad so I’m going to wait it out and see what happens.” Can it get worse from there?
[00:03:01] (Bryant): Absolutely. What seems like a minor injury can get far more severe and require a lot more treatment if left untreated. We see all the time that people try to be heroes; they feel a little bit of pain after an accident — maybe some neck soreness, soreness in their back — and they’ll say, “You know what, I’ll just see what happens. Maybe I’ll take some Tylenol and I’ll call it a day.”
[00:03:26] (Bryant): And then a few weeks later, when those pains have not resolved and in fact gotten worse, they find themselves behind the eight ball in terms of having waited too long for treatment, missing out on really valuable time where they could have been strengthening their muscles, being under the care of a physician who can make sure that they’re doing the right things to get that injury healed correctly and quickly.
[00:03:47] (Bryant): And then also, they’ve put themselves in a situation where the insurance company is going to classify their injury as minor because, as the insurance company will often argue, people who are seriously injured go to the doctor right away. People who are seriously injured go get checked out. So you’ve put yourself in this camp of “minor injury” even though it might not be right.
[00:04:16] (Jared): And so, I’d love to hear a scenario here as an example because there’s so many layers to this. So okay, here’s an example: I’m an Uber driver in Chicago and I got into an accident, or I’m an Uber passenger in Chicago and I got into an accident. What are the steps that you should take after that happens?
[00:04:36] (Bryant): Well, once you’re involved in an accident, your body has suffered some sort of physical force; there’s a physical trauma that happens when there is a collision. We recommend that you go get checked out immediately. Even if it’s just to an urgent care or to a primary care physician, just get checked out because the physician will then be able to determine: is this something that you can just kind of rest and see how it resolves on its own? Or alternatively, is there something else going on that needs to be watched more closely?
[00:05:13] (Bryant): Should you come back in a couple days to see if the symptoms have changed at all? Do we need to ensure that you get physical therapy so that you’re strengthening the muscles around the injured body part to avoid reinjury? There’s all sorts of ways in which going to the doctor early can help benefit you both in terms of your health and also make sure that you’re setting a solid foundation for any injury claim that you need to make later.
[00:05:40] (Jared): You got it. So you already answered my next question about when to know when a minor injury becomes more major. So when it gets to that point… you got checked out, it looks like it is something, it’s not just a scratch, you’re not going to walk it off. At that point, you know, where does LegalRideshare step in and how does LegalRideshare help this process forward?
[00:06:15] (Bryant): Yeah, you want to contact LegalRideshare if you’re injured in an Uber or Lyft-related accident. We help establish the claim with the appropriate insurance companies and make sure that we’re holding the responsible parties responsible for your losses. That means doing things like collecting the cost of your medical treatment. We don’t want you to go into medical debt because of somebody else’s negligence. We want you to get the treatment that you need to heal, and then we’ll get those bills paid through the insurance claims process.
[00:06:47] (Bryant): We can also help you recover for things like lost wages. A lot of people who have injuries, whether minor or more significant, do have to miss work. If you’ve missed work because of an Uber or Lyft accident, we can help you recover that money so that you can pay the bills. You have to put food on the table; we don’t want you losing money as a result of this circumstance.
[00:07:12] (Bryant): And then there’s also pain and suffering and what we call “loss of normal life” or temporary disability. These are non-economic damages. You know, there’s not receipts attached to them, but we can help recover money for them because you’ve gone through something. You’ve gone through the stress of the injury, the pain of not being able to move in the same ways that you did before, the limitations of not being able to do your job or carry your baby or exercise. You deserve compensation for that. So LegalRideshare steps in and demands money for all of those losses so that you can be fully compensated.
[00:07:57] (Jared): Yeah, and it’s great that you bring that up. I don’t think drivers or passengers who are in these accidents understand the scope of everything you explained. They think, “Well, if I don’t have a broken bone, a lawyer can’t do anything.” I actually spoke to a passenger in a Lyft accident in Chicago and I was mentioning the term “loss of normal life.” I used an example, like if you play golf or you throw a baseball with your son and you can’t anymore. And he actually went, “Ironically, that’s what happened. I couldn’t help my daughter with something she needed help with… I couldn’t help her move.” And I was like, “Exactly.”
[00:08:44] (Bryant): It’s interesting that you say that because it doesn’t have to be forever. A lot of times people say, “Well, you know, my injury only lasted a few months and I was able to return to my normal level of activity.” That’s the vast majority of cases. The vast majority of these claims are situations where people have a temporary injury — a sprain or strain, or even a broken bone. They get the treatment that they need and by the end of the course of treatment, they’re back to their normal lives. That’s what we hope for.
[00:09:22] (Bryant): But that doesn’t change the fact that during the treatment, during the time where you were physically injured, your life was altered. Of course, the value of a claim in which somebody has a lifelong permanent restriction is going to be far greater, but that doesn’t mean that the few months doesn’t deserve compensation. It doesn’t mean the insurance company gets to write that off. That’s still a period of time where you were limited in your life, where you were feeling physical pain, where you were incurring medical bills and lost wages. So you shouldn’t be hesitant to claim what you’ve lost and try to recover what’s rightfully yours.
[00:10:03] (Jared): Well, as always Bryant, that was very informational. I’m going to give you the final say. What is the best way for people to reach out to LegalRideshare if they have injuries or questions?
[00:10:14] (Bryant): LegalRideshare.com has all of our contact information. We encourage phone calls, emails — you can chat with us actually through the website. And please do not hesitate to reach out if you’ve got questions if you’ve been injured. Our consultations are always free. We want to provide the information that you need to have a solid foundation for your injury claim. There is no question too big or too small, so please reach out to us and we’re happy to help.
[00:10:47] (Jared): Thank you, Bryant. And as I like to say, that is the end of this week in rideshare. See you next week.
......
LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, robotaxis, Waymo, and gig worker accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.