On This Page
Why These Injuries Are So Common on a Bicycle
An occupant of a car has a restraint, an airbag, and a structure. A rider has a face arriving first. When a front wheel stops — a door opening, a fork failure, a pothole capturing the tyre — the machine pivots and the rider goes over the bars with the head leading and no time to bring the hands up.
The result is a recognisable pattern: fractures of the nose, orbit, cheekbone, and jaw; lacerations to the forehead, lip, and chin; and damage to the upper front teeth, which are simply the first thing to reach the ground or the vehicle.
A helmet, where one is worn, protects the cranium. Standard bicycle helmets meeting 16 C.F.R. part 1203 do not cover the face, so facial and dental injuries occur to helmeted and unhelmeted riders alike. Florida requires no full-face helmet at any age, and § 316.2065(3)(d) requires a helmet at all only under 16.
Scarring Is Its Own Category Under Florida Law
This is the legally distinctive thing about facial injuries and it is regularly missed.
Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2) limits recovery for pain, suffering, mental anguish and inconvenience to injuries consisting in whole or in part of:
| Paragraph | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| (a) | “Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function.” |
| (b) | “Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement.” |
| (c) | “Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement.” |
| (d) | “Death.” |
Notice the drafting. Paragraph (b) excludes scarring and disfigurement, and paragraph (c) then provides for them separately. They are alternative routes rather than overlapping descriptions, and a facial injury may satisfy (c) on its own terms without any argument about loss of function under (a).
Whether the threshold reaches an e-bike rider at all is a separate and unresolved question, bound up with whether that rider was entitled to PIP — see PIP and e-bike riders. The point here is that if the threshold is in play, a visible permanent facial scar engages a category written for it.
David I. Shiner, Esq.
Founder, Shiner Law Group · AV Preeminent® rated · Florida Bar member since 2002
David I. Shiner founded Shiner Law Group and has been a member of The Florida Bar since 2002. He is a graduate of Nova Southeastern University’s law school and holds an AV Preeminent® rating from Martindale-Hubbell. The firm represents injured people across Florida from offices in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Wellington, and Belle Glade, and handles these cases on a contingency basis with free consultations and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Documenting a Facial or Dental Injury
The evidence for these injuries is unusual in that the most important part of it is photographic and has to be built over time by the injured person.
- Photograph the injury at every stage — at the hospital, during healing, and at intervals afterwards. Consistent lighting and framing, and keep the dates. A scar that has faded by the time a claim is assessed still had an appearance in month one, and only your photographs establish it.
- Find photographs of yourself from before. Ordinary ones. Establishing what changed requires a comparison.
- Get a dental record of pre-existing condition if one exists. Prior records answer the argument that damage was pre-existing.
- Keep every treatment plan and quote, including for work not yet done. Future dental work is part of the claim under Fla. Stat. § 768.81(1).
- Ask the treating dentist about service life and replacement. An implant is not a permanent solution and the replacement cycle is a real future cost.
- Record the functional consequences — chewing, speech, numbness, jaw pain — not only the appearance. Those may engage paragraph (a) as well as (c).
- Record the social and occupational consequences honestly.
Facial or Dental Injuries From an E-Bike Crash?
Shiner Law Group offers free case reviews for Florida e-bike riders — 24/7, no fee unless you win.
Get My Free Case ReviewShiner Law Group, P.A. · Attorney Advertising
Why the Cost Does Not End With Treatment
Dental injury is the clearest example on this site of a loss that looks finished and is not. A crown, bridge, or implant has a finite service life. An implant placed on a twenty-five-year-old will be replaced more than once, and each replacement carries its own cost and its own procedure.
Fla. Stat. § 768.81(1) defines economic damages to include future medical expenses, so those projected costs belong in the claim rather than being absorbed by the injured person over the following decades. Establishing them requires evidence from the treating clinicians about the expected cycle, not a guess.
Facial scarring has a parallel arc. Revision surgery may be recommended a year or more after the original injury, and the final appearance may not be known until then. Resolving a claim before that point releases something that has not been measured.
Both of those pull against the two-year period in Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a), which is a reason to involve a lawyer early rather than to wait until treatment is complete.