A couple who filed a personal injury lawsuit on behalf of their daughter, a cyclist killed in a road accident, has won a $5.25 million judgment.

Jurors found in favor of the family of 25-year-old Virginia “Ginny” Murray, who was killed in 2016 when a driver for A&B Hardwood Flooring Supplies struck Murray as she rode by his flatbed truck on a Divvy bike, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. Divvy is a bicycle ride-sharing program in Chicago.

Along with A&B Hardwood, Murray’s family sued the truck’s driver, Cosmin A. Radu, accusing him of failing to “keep a proper lookout for bicyclists and yield the right of way and reduce his speed,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

The Tribune said that despite Murray being an experienced cyclist, and the road where the accident occurred heavily traveled by bikes, there was no bike lane. The plaintiffs’ lawyers characterized forcing bicyclists to share the roads with cars and trucks as a “recipe for disaster.”

The New York Post reports that Murray is the first bike-share death in the United States. At a news conference, the Murray family’s attorney challenged the City of Chicago to create a way to allow vehicles and bicyclists to “peacefully coexist.”

“You can’t just put a number of bicycles on the road and just say, ‘Good luck. Drive safe,'” the lawyer said. “There’s got to be some infrastructure in place.”

Jurors initially awarded Murray’s family $7 million in its personal injury suit, but the panel reduced the amount to $5.25 million after finding Murray 25 percent at fault for the collision.

Overview of Personal Injury Law

Personal injury law
generally applies to legal disputes stemming from one party suffering some kind of damage caused by another party’s negligence.

Personal injury lawsuits are typically filed when a person suffers injuries due to circumstances that could have reasonably been prevented if proper actions had been taken.

Examples of this include companies failing to provide proper safety equipment for workers or ensuring workers have safety guardrails or guidelines to follow, which can prevent workplace injuries.

Another example would be drivers operating vehicles in an unsafe manner.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO),  1.25 million people died in automobile accidents in 2013, an average of 3,287 deaths per day.

Road traffic accidents are the ninth leading cause of death and account for 2.2 percent of all deaths worldwide, with WHO predicting that road traffic injuries will become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030 unless if progressive action is taken to encourage safer driving habits or road construction.

It is important to note that driving safety is not only the responsibility of the person driving a car, but a shared responsibility between other motorists on the road.

This also applies to state and federal governments, who are charged with building safe roads, and with law enforcement and community groups to ensure motorists are not speeding or engaging in other reckless behaviors that could cause an accident.