Electric Scooter Accident Attorney – Fighting for Victims

How common are electric scooter accidents?

Electric scooter accidents have become increasingly common in cities across the country, including within California. They can cause surprisingly serious injuries. Worse, it can be difficult to recover compensation for those injuries because insurance may not cover the accident. A personal injury lawyer can ensure that your rights are invoked and fight for the compensation that you deserve.

What are some examples of electric scooter accidents?

Accidents involving electric scooters, sometimes called “e-scooters,” can happen in a variety of ways. Some common examples happen when the rider:

• loses control of the scooter and falls off,
• hits a dangerous road condition, like a pothole, and crashes,
• collides with a parked car,
• is involved in a car accident with a moving vehicle,
• crashes into a pedestrian,
• gets involved in a bicycle accident, or
• leaves the e-scooter in a walkway and someone else trips and falls over it.

How common are they?

The number of e-scooter accidents have skyrocketed in the past decade. The rise coincides with the proliferation of ride-sharing companies for e-scooters, like:

• Bird,
• Lime,
• Lyft,
• Uber,
• Razor, and
• Skip.

These rental companies have dropped their dockless e-scooters into cities and opened their smartphone apps to local residents for them to rent, use, return, and pay for the e-scooters. Many of the riders that use them have never ridden an e-scooter before. Most scooter operators do not wear helmets. Lots of them are unable to control the surprising speed and power of the scooters.

In 2014, there were a reported 4,582 injuries related to e-scooters. By 2018, when ride-sharing e-scooters had become ubiquitous in U.S. cities, that number had risen 222 percent to 14,651.¹ For every 100,000 trips that happen on an e-scooter, 20 people get hurt.²

What are some typical electric scooter injuries?

The types of injuries sustained in electric scooter accidents are surprisingly serious. Some of the most common e-scooter injuries are:

• broken bones, often in the hands, wrists, or arms of the rider as he or she tries to break their fall,
• cuts and lacerations, some of them life-threatening,
• broken ribs,
• neck injuries,
• head injuries, including concussions and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs),
• road rash, and
• whiplash.

The number of injuries that were serious outpaced the increase in all reported injuries between 2014 and 2018, when ride-sharing e-scooter companies grew in popularity. During that time, hospital admissions for significant injuries rose 365 percent, from 313 to 1,374.³

Head injuries are especially common for e-scooter riders. Nearly 1 in 3 injured riders had a head injury from their crash or fall.⁴

Will insurance cover the costs of the accident?

E-scooter accidents are very problematic because insurance companies tend not to cover them. This makes it very difficult for victims to recover compensation after getting hurt in one.

The situation changes if:

• the crash only involved the rider of the e-scooter, or
• the rider hurt someone else.

Only the rider was involved

If only the rider was involved, then the rider’s health insurance will cover their medical bills. However, other losses you sustain as the rider will likely not be covered, like your pain and suffering.

If the e-scooter was provided by a ride-sharing company, many riders try to hold the ride-sharing company responsible. However, these claims are usually not successful. The terms of use that ride-sharing companies make you sign before using their scooters include liability waivers. By using a ride-share e-scooter, you generally have to waive your right to sue the company if something goes wrong.

The e-scooter rider hit and hurt someone else

If you were a pedestrian or were driving a car and got hit and hurt by an e-scooter, there will often be no liability insurance to cover your losses.

If the e-scooter rider has auto insurance, the terms of that policy are unlikely to cover e-scooter rides. Car insurance policies are generally only for cars and similar motor vehicles. Their liability coverage rarely applies to electric scooters.

If the rider has renters’ insurance or homeowners’ insurance, the liability coverage from those policies may apply to an e-scooter crash. However, the terms of the policies will matter. In many cases, they will not cover the accident.

The best case scenario is if the electric scooter rider had an umbrella insurance policy. These policies have liability coverage with few limitations. However, very few people have these types of coverage.

Can the e-scooter ride-sharing company be held liable?

Generally, ride-sharing companies that provided the electric scooter cannot be sued. In order to use an e-scooter, riders must assume all responsibility for a crash. They must also waive their right to sue the company if they get hurt.

There are limited exceptions to this rule, though. A personal injury attorney can help.

What if I was partially to blame for my e-scooter accident?

In California, if you were partially to blame for an accident, your compensation will be reduced.

Many accidents, including those involving electric scooters, are shared fault situations. Different states use different rules for resolving these shared fault accidents.

California uses the rule of pure comparative negligence.⁵ In the personal injury trial, the jury would state how much compensation you deserve. It would also assign a percentage of fault to you for your role in causing the accident. Your compensation would then be reduced by your percentage of fault.

For example: Clare is riding her e-scooter in Los Angeles in a bike lane when she hits a bicyclist on an e-bike. Clare is thrown over the handlebars and suffers severe injuries that send her to the emergency room. She sues the cyclist. A jury finds that Clare has suffered $100,000 in legal damages from her scooter-related injuries. However, it also finds that Clare was 20 percent responsible because she was going over the speed limit. Clare will recover $80,000.

How can a California personal injury lawyer help me?

A personal injury attorney can help by increasing the settlement offers that you receive. He or she can also help you make an informed decision about whether they are fair or not. If none are sufficient, your lawyer can file a personal injury claim against the party at fault for the e-scooter accident.

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