Left turn and right of way motorcycle accidentsThe turning driver had to yield.

These cases involve a car turning left across a rider's path, pulling out of a driveway or a parking lot, or crossing at an intersection in Los Angeles County. For coverage, deadlines and injuries, start at our Los Angeles motorcycle accident lawyer page.

What the turning driver owed you

Section 21801(a) says the driver of a vehicle intending to turn left or to complete a U-turn upon a highway shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching from the opposite direction which are close enough to constitute a hazard. A Los Angeles jury hears that rule as CACI No. 704, the standard jury instruction on the point. CACI No. 701 tells the jury what yielding the right-of-way means: the turning driver must let the approaching vehicle go first, and having the right-of-way never relieves anyone of the duty to use reasonable care.

Subdivision (b) is the part the defense will rely on. Once a driver has yielded as subdivision (a) requires and has given the signal the code requires, that driver may complete the turn, and approaching drivers must then yield to the turning vehicle. The case therefore turns on timing. If the car was already committed and signaling when you were still a block back, the statute favors the driver. If the car turned into a motorcycle that was already in the intersection, it does not.

Why the driver's statement helps your claim

It is the most common statement at a motorcycle scene, and it is often the reason these cases resolve. CACI No. 700 tells the jury that a driver must use reasonable care in driving, must keep a lookout for pedestrians, obstacles and other vehicles, and must control the speed and movement of the vehicle. A driver who says he looked and saw nothing has either not looked or not seen what was in front of him. Both are failures of the same duty.

Where a violation of a statute like section 21801 is established, the jury can be instructed under CACI No. 418 to presume the driver was negligent, which shifts the work to the defense. The driver's statement is valuable because it arrives before anyone has a lawyer. Officers write it down at the scene. The version that appears in a recorded interview four weeks later is usually longer, more careful, and inconsistent with the first one.

What the point of impact proves

A left-turning car sweeps through an arc, and the further along that arc it travels, the further back along its body a motorcycle will strike it. That geometry is fixed and does not depend on anyone's memory, which is why we photograph both vehicles before either is towed. A reconstruction engineer works backward from crush depth, contact height and the rest positions to a range of approach speeds.

What the motorcycle's road marks prove

Riders and cars leave different evidence, and officers trained on cars sometimes miss half of it. These marks fade in days and are paved over in weeks, so we visit the scene early in the case.

• The gouge. A deep score where metal met pavement marks the point of impact more reliably than any witness. We measure it against the lane lines and the limit line.
• Scuff and yaw marks. A tire sliding sideways leaves striations across the mark rather than along it. That difference distinguishes a lockup from a swerve.
• The absence of skid on an ABS bike. Anti-lock braking leaves little or nothing. An adjuster who argues that the absence of skid marks means you never braked is wrong about the technology.
• Fluid trails and debris fields. Coolant, oil and glass spread from the impact point in a direction that records the momentum of both vehicles.
• Rest positions. Where the bike, the rider and the car stopped bounds the energy in the collision and constrains the speed range.
• Headlight and turn signal filaments. A filament that was lit at impact deforms differently from a cold one. It answers both whether your headlight was on and whether the driver signaled.

How often turning drivers hit riders

UC Berkeley's Safe Transportation Research and Education Center reports that in California in 2023, improper turning was the primary collision factor in 19.8 percent of fatal and serious injury motorcycle crashes. An automobile right of way violation accounted for another 19.3 percent, 39.1 percent between them. Broadside was the most common crash type at 31.1 percent (SafeTREC 2025 traffic safety facts, motorcycle safety). Those are statewide California figures. A broadside is what a left turn across a rider's path produces, which is why this pattern is both the most common serious one and the one where liability is clearest.

When the usual rule does not apply

• You were speeding. The defense will argue you were not close enough to constitute a hazard when the turn began. Speed reduces your recovery under comparative fault, the rule that cuts an award by your share of the blame. It does not erase a turn made across an occupied lane.
• The car had a green arrow. A protected left changes the analysis, because the opposing traffic had a red. We pull the signal phasing before assuming anything about who had what.
• The driver signaled and waited. Section 21801(b) then puts the yield on you. This is the difficult case, and it turns on how long the car sat in the intersection before moving.
• Another driver waved the car through. A wave from a stopped motorist is not a traffic control device, and it does not transfer the statutory duty. It can add a second defendant.
• You were lane splitting when the car turned. The defense will argue about the turn and about your lane position at the same time. Neither is a statutory violation on your part, and our lane splitting accidents page covers the lane position argument.
• The car came out of a driveway or a lot. Different code sections apply, but the proof is identical: sight lines photographed from the driver's seat, and the contact point on the car.

What to do while the evidence lasts

Have the intersection photographed from the driver's eye position, not from standing height, and before the season changes what the trees and the parked cars block. Ask for the signal phasing in writing from whoever operates the intersection. Send a preservation letter, a written demand that the car be kept as it is, so its event data recorder can be downloaded before it is repaired or sold.

Clear liability does not by itself set the value of the claim. What a turning-driver case is worth depends on the coverage behind the driver and on how the injuries are documented, which our motorcycle accident settlements page sets out instruction by instruction. The same yield rules decide fault when the person crossing the intersection is on foot, which our Los Angeles pedestrian accident lawyer page covers.