South Carolina Bicycle Accident Law

Who Pays After a Crash in South Carolina

South Carolina is an at-fault state. The driver who caused the crash owes you for your losses, and section 38-77-140 of the South Carolina Code requires every auto policy to carry at least $25,000 for one person's injuries, $50,000 for everyone hurt in the accident, and $25,000 for property damage. The 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions left the limits alone.

Your bike and gear are paid from the $25,000 property limit, and no injury threshold stands between you and a claim.

The state has no no-fault system to fall back on. Section 38-77-144 says no personal injury protection coverage is mandated under South Carolina's automobile insurance laws. An insurer may still sell medical payment coverage, which the same section protects from subrogation and setoff. Whether that coverage on your own auto policy responds when you are hit on a bike depends on its wording, so ask the insurer in writing.

If nobody in your household has an auto policy, you are left with the driver's liability coverage, your health plan, and whatever you carry on the bike itself. A serious injury can outrun a $25,000 limit long before the treatment ends.

Fault and How It Reduces a Claim

South Carolina's fault rule comes from its Supreme Court, not from a statute. In Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., decided in 1991, the court replaced contributory negligence with comparative negligence for every claim arising on or after July 1, 1991. You may recover if your negligence is not greater than the defendant's, and your recovery is reduced in proportion to your share. A rider found 50% responsible for a $100,000 loss collects $50,000. At 51%, the same rider collects nothing. When more than one defendant is involved, your share is compared with their combined negligence.

Section 15-38-15 then decides who pays the award. A defendant found less than 50% at fault owes only its own percentage. Under Act 42 of 2025, for claims arising after January 1, 2026, a defendant can also ask the jury to assign fault to someone you never sued.

The arguments about your share come from the bicycle article of the traffic code. Section 56-5-3420 gives a cyclist on a roadway the rights and duties of a driver. The rules most often raised:

• Lane position. Section 56-5-3430 tells you to ride as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable. Riding on the shoulder is allowed but not required, and two abreast is the maximum.
• Bike lanes. Where a bicycle lane runs next to the roadway, section 56-5-3425 requires you to use it except to pass another rider or avoid an obstruction.
• Lights. Section 56-5-3470 requires a white front lamp visible from 500 feet at night and a red rear reflector.
• Stop signs and red lights. Act 173 of 2026, in force since May 18, 2026, lets a cyclist slow down and roll through a stop sign after yielding, and proceed through a steady red light after a complete stop and a yield to oncoming traffic.

Helmets are an open question. The bicycle article has no helmet requirement, and no South Carolina statute says whether riding without one can be used against an injured cyclist.

Hit-and-Run and Uninsured Drivers

Uninsured motorist coverage is not optional in South Carolina. Section 38-77-150 bars any auto policy from being issued without it, at limits no lower than $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, plus $25,000 for damage to the insured's property with the first $200 of the loss excluded.

The definition of who is protected is what counts for a cyclist. Section 38-77-30 defines the insured as the named insured and, while resident of the same household, the spouse and relatives of either, "while in a motor vehicle or otherwise." Those last two words are the statutory basis for a claim when you are hit on a bike; confirm with your insurer how its policy form applies them.

When the driver flees, section 38-77-170 sets the conditions. Rewritten by Act 180 of 2024, it requires all of the following:

• You or someone on your behalf reported the accident to a police authority within a reasonable time.
• The injury came from physical contact with the unknown vehicle, or a witness signs an affidavit, or you can produce a recording showing the unknown vehicle caused it.
• You were not negligent in failing to identify the vehicle and its driver.

A rider forced off the road with no contact can still qualify with a witness or a recording.

Underinsured motorist coverage is a separate, optional purchase. Section 38-77-160 requires insurers to offer it up to your liability limits, and it pays when your damages exceed the at-fault driver's liability limits. The same section limits stacking: when none of your own vehicles is involved in the accident, which is the case on a bike, coverage above the basic limits is available only to the extent of the coverage on any one of your vehicles.

In a bike insurance policy, check whether it offers uninsured motorist coverage of its own and whether crash damage is covered no matter who hit you.

Dooring and Passing Laws

Section 56-5-3822 is South Carolina's dooring statute. No person may open any door of a motor vehicle unless it is reasonably safe to do so and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, and no one may leave a door open on the traffic side longer than it takes to load or unload passengers.

The passing rule is short. Section 56-5-3435 requires a driver to maintain, at all times, a safe operating distance between the motor vehicle and a bicycle. The code gives no figure in feet.

Three more sections, all written or rewritten by Act 317 of 2008, turn up in crash claims. Under section 56-5-3425, a driver may not block a bicycle lane and must yield to a rider in the lane before entering or crossing it, the rule that governs a right-hook collision. Section 56-5-3445 makes it a misdemeanor to harass, taunt, or throw an object at a cyclist, with a fine of at least $250 or up to 30 days in jail. And section 56-5-3500 sets a civil fine of up to $500 for a driver whose violation of the bicycle article causes a minor injury, and up to $1,000 for great bodily injury.

E-bikes

South Carolina does not sort e-bikes into classes. Section 56-1-10 has a single definition, added in 2020, for "electric-assist bicycles" and "bicycles with helper motors": two or three wheels, fully operable pedals, an electric motor of no more than 750 watts, and a top motor-powered speed of less than 20 mph. The motor must cut out when you brake or stop pedaling, and the definition states that these bikes are not mopeds.

Section 56-5-3520 completes the picture: a rider on a bicycle with a helper motor is subject to every provision that applies to bicyclists. After a crash, the same 51% bar and three-year deadline apply.

The label is worth a photograph. Manufacturers must fix a permanent label showing wattage and maximum assisted speed. A motor rated above 750 watts and up to 1,500 watts fits the code's moped definition instead, and a bike that assists to 28 mph does not fit the electric-assist definition as written. How such a bike is classified after a crash is not settled by the statute.

Two more questions are open. Section 56-5-3660 requires anyone under 21 on a "two-wheeled motorized vehicle" to wear a helmet, and the code does not say whether that phrase reaches an electric-assist bicycle. And no statute or published guidance says whether auto uninsured motorist coverage follows you onto an e-bike. Get your insurer's position in writing.

Deadlines

South Carolina gives you three years to sue a driver, but only two when the defendant is a state agency, a county, or a city.

1. At the scene

   Notify Police Immediately

   Section 56-5-1260 requires immediate notice of any accident involving injury or death, by the quickest means of communication, to the local police department inside a municipality and otherwise to the county sheriff or the South Carolina Highway Patrol.

2. 15 days

   The Driver's Insurance Verification

   Section 56-5-1270 requires the operator or owner of a motor vehicle in a crash with an injury or at least $1,000 in apparent damage to return a verified form showing liability insurance to the Department of Motor Vehicles within 15 days of the accident date. Failure to send it is prima facie evidence that the vehicle was uninsured.

3. One year

   Optional Verified Claim Against a Government Body

   The South Carolina Tort Claims Act does not make you file a notice of claim before suing. Section 15-78-80 lets you file a verified claim with the State Fiscal Accountability Authority, the agency, or the political subdivision. If you file one, it must be received within one year, and the government then has 180 days to allow or disallow it.

4. Two years

   Lawsuit Against a State Agency, County, or City

   Section 15-78-110 bars a Tort Claims Act lawsuit unless it is commenced within two years after the loss was or should have been discovered. If you first filed a verified claim, the deadline is three years.

5. Three years

   Injury and Bike Damage Lawsuit

   Section 15-3-530 gives you three years to sue for personal injury and three years for damage to the bike. For injuries, section 15-3-535 starts the clock when you knew or should have known you had a claim. A wrongful death claim runs three years from the death. For a rider under 18, section 15-3-40 does not count the time before the 18th birthday, but it cannot stretch the deadline more than one year past that birthday.

Claims against government are capped. Section 15-78-120 limits recovery to $300,000 per person and $600,000 per occurrence, with no punitive damages.

For a dispute over the bike alone, section 22-3-10 lets magistrates court hear claims of up to $7,500.

Evidence to Preserve

With a 51% bar, evidence in South Carolina has one main job: keeping your share at or below the driver's. Collect it with that in mind.

• The collision report number and the investigating agency: city police, the county sheriff, or the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
• The driver's name, address, and registration number, which section 56-5-1230 requires the driver to give you.
• Video. A recording is one of the three ways section 38-77-170 lets you prove a hit-and-run, so save bike camera files the same day.
• Witness names and phone numbers. A hit-and-run witness must sign an affidavit.
• Your lights and reflector, photographed on the bike, if the crash happened after dark.
• The e-bike label showing wattage and maximum assisted speed.
• Your auto policy's declarations page, showing your uninsured motorist limits and whether underinsured coverage was bought.
• The damaged bike, unrepaired, with receipts.

Coverage for South Carolina Riders

South Carolina law leaves a rider exposed in four places: a driver carrying the $25,000 minimum, a household with no auto policy and so no uninsured motorist coverage, a state with no personal injury protection to pay early medical bills, and a fault rule that pays nothing once your share passes 50%. The Velosurance policy offers the coverages discussed above.

Uninsured Motorist covers losses beyond medical bills, such as lost wages, when the at-fault driver cannot pay. It sits on the bike policy, so it does not depend on anyone in your household owning a car.

Medical Payments covers the deductible and out-of-pocket costs your health plan leaves, regardless of the driver's insurance. Choose a limit close to your plan's out-of-pocket deductible.

Liability is the coverage for the day the percentages run against you. If you are held responsible for a crash, it covers injury to other people and damage to their property, including the cost of defending a covered lawsuit, with limits from $25,000 to $500,000.

Crash damage to the bike is part of the policy itself: stated value with no depreciation, subject to the deductible, whoever was at fault.

For any of these coverages to apply, it must be on the policy before the crash. Get a quote before the next ride, not after it.