Road rash—the skin abrasion injuries from sliding across pavement—is one of the most common bicycle accident injuries. While sometimes dismissed as minor, severe road rash can cause significant pain, permanent scarring, and complications requiring extensive medical treatment and substantial compensation.
Understanding Road Rash Severity
Road rash is classified by depth, similar to burns. First-degree road rash affects only the epidermis (outer skin layer), causing redness and minor pain that heals without scarring. Second-degree road rash reaches the dermis layer, causing open wounds, significant pain, and likely scarring.
Third-degree road rash penetrates through all skin layers, potentially exposing muscle, fat, or bone. These severe injuries require extensive medical treatment, often including skin grafting, and cause permanent disfigurement.
Medical Treatment for Road Rash
Treatment varies with severity. Minor road rash may be treated at home with cleaning and bandaging. Moderate to severe cases require professional wound care including thorough cleaning and debridement (removal of debris and dead tissue), specialized dressings that promote healing, potential skin grafting for full-thickness wounds, pain management and infection prevention, and physical therapy if scarring affects movement.
Severe road rash treatment can extend over weeks or months with regular dressing changes, monitoring for infection, and multiple surgeries for grafting.
Complications and Long-Term Effects
Infection is a serious concern with road rash because the wounds are contaminated with road debris. Signs of infection require immediate medical attention. Deep infections can spread to underlying structures.
Permanent scarring is common with second and third-degree road rash. Scars may be raised, discolored, or textured differently than surrounding skin. Keloid formation (excessive scar tissue) creates additional disfigurement. Scars over joints may cause contractures limiting movement.
Nerve damage from deep abrasions can cause chronic pain, numbness, or hypersensitivity in affected areas.
Calculating Damages for Road Rash Injuries
Road rash damages depend on severity and location. Medical expenses include emergency care, wound treatment supplies, potential hospitalization, and any surgical procedures including skin grafts.
Pain and suffering is significant—road rash wounds are extremely painful, and daily cleaning and dressing changes extend the suffering. Scarring in visible locations (face, arms, legs) causes ongoing self-consciousness and emotional distress.
Disfigurement damages compensate for permanent scarring. Visible scars, particularly on the face, command substantial compensation for the lifelong impact on appearance and self-image. Scar revision surgery may be a future expense.
Proving Road Rash Claims
Document your injuries thoroughly. Photograph road rash wounds immediately after the accident and throughout healing to show severity and progression. Save medical records detailing wound care, treatments, and prognosis.
Photographs of healed scars demonstrate permanent disfigurement. Expert testimony from plastic surgeons regarding scarring permanence and potential revision options supports damage claims.
Protective Gear and Liability
Cycling clothing provides some protection against road rash. Defendants may argue that failure to wear protective gear contributed to injuries. However, there is no legal requirement to wear cycling-specific clothing, and comparative fault for such failure is limited in most jurisdictions.
If you suffered road rash in a bicycle accident, proper wound care and documentation protect both your health and your legal claim.