Wilkes-Barre Uber & Lyft Accident Lawyers

You are in the strongest position of anyone in the crash: a passenger is essentially never at fault, and Pennsylvania law (Act 164 of 2016) requires $1,000,000 in coverage while a passenger is in the vehicle. If your rideshare driver caused the crash, that policy answers; if another driver did, we pursue their liability coverage with the rideshare policy layered behind it. Either way, you don't have to sort out which driver was to blame — that's our job, not yours.

Along with medical care and a police report, preserve the thing unique to these cases: the app. Screenshot the trip screen, the driver's name and photo, the route and the receipt — that evidence establishes which insurance period applied at the moment of the crash, and it disappears from your phone's easy reach as trips age. Report the crash through the app so it's on record with the company, but decline recorded statements from any insurer until we've spoken.

Coverage follows the driver's app status minute by minute. App off: only the driver's personal auto policy applies. App on, waiting for a match: Pennsylvania requires tiered coverage of $50,000/$100,000 for injury and $25,000 for property damage. En route to a pickup or carrying a passenger: the full $1,000,000 policy. Crashes at the boundaries — seconds after accepting a ride, or just after a drop-off — are exactly where insurers fight, so we obtain the app data that fixes the timeline.

Expect it — most personal auto policies exclude commercial driving, so the driver's own insurer routinely denies rideshare crashes. That denial isn't the end; it's the trigger for the coverage Pennsylvania requires the rideshare company to carry during active app periods. If neither source fully covers serious injuries, your own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage can apply on top. We work out the full coverage stack before making any demand, so nothing is left unclaimed.

Usually the practical recovery runs through the insurance Pennsylvania requires the companies to provide, rather than a suit against the corporation itself — rideshare companies classify drivers as independent contractors and defend that line vigorously. The good news is that the required coverage exists precisely so injured people don't depend on winning that fight. Where facts support claims against the company itself, we evaluate them; but we never let that question delay the insurance claim that pays your bills.

Often it doesn't. Limited tort (75 Pa. C.S. § 1705) restricts pain-and-suffering recovery for non-serious injuries, but its exceptions frequently apply in rideshare crashes: a serious injury as defined by law, an at-fault driver convicted of DUI, or an out-of-state vehicle among them. Whether an exception fits depends on your policy language and the crash facts, so bring your declarations page to the free consultation and we'll tell you exactly what you can claim.

Two years from the crash (42 Pa. C.S. § 5524), and for injured minors the clock generally starts at 18 (§ 5533(b)). The functional deadlines are shorter: trip data, driver status records and in-car camera footage live on company servers, and dash-cam and doorbell video around the crash scene is overwritten in days or weeks. We send preservation demands to the rideshare company early so the records proving which insurance period applied still exist when it's time to use them.

It depends on your medical expenses now and in the future, lost income and earning capacity, the permanence of the injury, and the coverage available — which in rideshare cases can be substantially larger than a typical crash because of the required $1,000,000 policy. No lawyer can honestly quote a figure before reviewing your medical records and the coverage stack. The consultation is free, the fee is a written contingency, and you pay nothing unless we recover.