A motorcycle and a car collided Wednesday in Palo Alto. The motorcyclist suffered a serious leg injury in the accident and was taken to Stanford Hospital for treatment. The motorcycle accident reportedly occurred shortly before 11:00 a.m. Wednesday on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto. Officials originally reported that the accident involved a pedestrian, but now have clarified that no pedestrian was involved in the motor vehicle accident.
Law enforcement says the crash involved a failure to yield issue. Police say the biker was heading south on Middlefield, when a station wagon crossed the road at the intersection of Middlefield and Forest Avenue. Palo Alto Police say the driver of the station wagon stopped at the intersection, but pulled out in front of the oncoming bike before the accident.
A CHP officer was near the scene of the crash and stopped to offer assistance in the immediate aftermath of the accident. It was a CHP preliminary report that included a reference to the involvement of a pedestrian, but that error has been clarified.
A Palo Alto Police sergeant says the motorcyclist suffered an “obvious major leg injury” in the accident. Authorities do not believe the biker suffered any life-threatening injuries in the failure to yield motorcycle crash.
News reports do not indicate the type of leg injury the motorcycle rider suffered. San Francisco bike and motorcycle accident attorneys know that riders can experience numerous types of leg injuries, even in low speed accidents. Complicating matters further, the full extent of injuries is often not well-known in the immediate aftermath of a crash.
Source: Palo Alto Online, “Motorcyclist hit by car on Middlefield Road,” Jan. 5, 2011
