Electric Scooter Accident Claim: Who Pays and What Applies

Scooter crashes fall into three groups, and the claim is different in each. The largest group of serious injuries involves a motor vehicle: a car turning across the rider's path, a door opened into a bike lane, a driver who did not see a scooter in a crosswalk. That claim is against the driver's liability insurer under ordinary negligence rules, and it resembles a pedestrian or cyclist claim. The driver's insurer will argue the rider was somewhere they should not have been or was moving unpredictably.

The second group is single-rider falls caused by the scooter itself: brakes that did not engage, a stem that folded, a wheel that locked, a throttle that stuck, or a scooter that was deployed with a known defect. These are claims against the rental operator for negligent maintenance or against the manufacturer for a defective product, and the first question is whether the scooter has been preserved and its maintenance and ride history obtained.

The third group is falls caused by the road: potholes, raised pavement, utility covers, streetcar tracks, construction plates and debris. Small wheels make scooters far more sensitive to surface defects than bicycles. These are claims against the city, the utility or the contractor responsible, governed by governmental immunity rules and notice-of-claim deadlines that can be as short as 90 days.

Every shared scooter ride begins with an agreement, accepted in the app, that contains a release of claims against the operator, an assumption of risk, and an arbitration clause requiring any dispute to be resolved privately rather than in court. Operators rely on these terms to defeat claims for scooter malfunction. Courts have enforced them in some cases and refused in others, depending on the state's law on releases of negligence, on how the terms were presented in the app, and on whether the injured person had a real opportunity to read them.

The agreement does not bind anyone who was not a party to it. A driver who hit a scooter rider cannot invoke the operator's release, and a pedestrian hit by a scooter is not bound by it. The agreement is relevant only to claims against the operator itself, and even there it is a defense to be tested, not a bar to be accepted.

Operators also hold the data: the ride's GPS track and speed, the scooter's maintenance history, prior damage reports on that unit, and sometimes fault codes. A preservation letter to the operator in the first days is essential in any malfunction claim, and the physical scooter should be identified by its number and held if at all possible.

Suppose you were riding a rental scooter in a marked bike lane when a driver turned right across the lane without looking and struck you. You suffered a fractured elbow requiring surgery and a facial laceration, with $41,000 in medical bills and five weeks off work. The driver's insurer accepted that its driver turned across the lane but assigned you 40 percent fault for traveling faster than a bicycle and for not wearing a helmet.

The ride data obtained from the operator showed a speed of 14 miles per hour, within the scooter's limit and lawful in the lane. The state's law required helmets only for riders under 18, and the elbow injury had nothing to do with a helmet. The fault assignment was reduced to 10 percent for the rider's speed relative to the driver's expectation, and the claim settled at 90 percent of its value within the driver's $100,000 policy.

Had the driver carried a minimum policy, your own household auto policy's underinsured motorist coverage would have been the next source; most policies cover a household member injured as a pedestrian or on a non-motorized or low-powered device, though some exclude motorized scooters, so the policy language is checked early. All figures are hypothetical.

Scooter claims are lost by riders who leave the scene, do not identify the scooter, or accept the fault assigned to them.

• Call the police and get a report, even for a single-rider fall; the report records the location and the scooter.
• Photograph the scooter, its ID number, the brakes and stem, the road surface and any defect, and the vehicle and plate if a car was involved.
• Take a screenshot of the ride in the app, which records the scooter number, time and route.
• Get witness names; scooter crashes happen in busy areas with many witnesses who leave quickly.
• Get medical care the same day and report every injury.
• Have a preservation letter sent to the operator for the ride data and the scooter's maintenance history, and to the city or contractor if a road defect is involved.
• Check your own household auto policy, and renter's or homeowner's policy, for coverage that applies to you as a scooter rider or to a claim against you.

Scooter laws vary by state and city: whether scooters may use sidewalks, bike lanes or roads; speed limits; helmet rules, usually only for minors; and whether an e-scooter is a motor vehicle for insurance purposes. A rider who was somewhere the law prohibits is assigned fault, and the state's comparative negligence rule decides the effect: a reduction with no cutoff in pure comparative states such as California and New York; a reduction up to a 50 or 51 percent bar in most states; and a complete bar for any fault in Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, where sidewalk riding or a missing light can end the claim.

Whether your own auto policy covers you on a scooter depends on the policy's definition of a motor vehicle and its exclusions, and on state law. Several states have ruled that a low-powered e-scooter is not a motor vehicle for policy purposes, so the rider is treated like a pedestrian and uninsured motorist coverage applies; others treat it as a motor vehicle the rider owns or operates and exclude it. No-fault states, Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, apply their PIP rules to a scooter rider hit by a car according to the same definitional question.

Deadlines are the state's injury statute, one year in Tennessee and Kentucky, two in Texas, California, Florida and Georgia, three in New York and North Carolina, with the government notice deadline, often 90 days to a year, applying to road defect claims. Arbitration clauses in rental agreements may impose their own time limits, which are not always enforced.

Pedestrians struck by scooter riders on sidewalks are a growing category of claim, and the structure is inverted: the rider is personally liable, the rental operator generally is not, and there is no auto insurance because the scooter is not insured. The rider's homeowner's or renter's policy may cover the liability, depending on whether the policy excludes motorized vehicles, and many do.

A pedestrian hit by a scooter rider should get the rider's name and the scooter number, report to the police, and make a claim against the rider; if the rider cannot be identified, the operator can identify who rented that scooter at that time, and a request to the operator or a subpoena produces it. The pedestrian's own health insurance pays treatment in the meantime.

A scooter rider sued by a pedestrian should notify their homeowner's or renter's insurer immediately and request a defense; the insurer will decide coverage under the policy, and a denial can be contested.

A scooter claim starts with identifying what caused the crash, because that decides whether the defendant is a driver, an operator, a manufacturer or a city, and which rules and deadlines apply. The questions to answer early are what the ride data and the scooter show, what fault is being assigned to the rider and on what basis, and what coverage exists on the rider's own policies. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency.

Ask Legal Matters is a free claim-review request service, not a law firm. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in your state, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say what the claim is worth. If you were hurt on or by an electric scooter, you can request a free claim review.

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