When you’re cruising around on flat roads with no traffic, a motorized scooter is a terrific form of transportation. But as anyone who lives in San Francisco or Los Angeles knows, most of our roads aren’t flat and empty!
Traffic congestion, pedestrians, rough pavement, and almost endless other risks are all over California’s roads. E-scooters are actually quite dangerous in certain road conditions.
As California scooter accident lawyers, we’ve seen many shockingly severe scooter injuries. So let’s look at some of the risks of being injured while riding motorized scooters so you’ll know what to avoid when you ride.
Scooters, Traffic, and Tricky Visibility
The moment a scooter rider enters a high-traffic area, the risks go up, up, up. Scooters are almost invisible to other drivers, especially at night if they have no lights installed on their frames.
San Francisco and LA scooter accident injuries are on the rise. The city’s busy, frustrated drivers tend to overlook smaller-sized road users like scooter riders. That is, until BAM! A motorist hits a scooter and leaves its rider with severe injuries.
No Respect for Scooter Users
Another issue boils down to respect. Plenty of motorists look down on scooter users or assume they, as vehicle drivers, always have the right of way instead of scooters. When you’re on your scooter, they look at you like, “Why are you riding that? Get out of the road!”
And if you ride on the sidewalk, pedestrians shoot you nasty looks and say you’re in their way. People sitting at outdoor cafes and bus stops act like you’re inconveniencing them by riding by. Sometimes it seems that scooter riders just can’t win!
Scooter Rider Inexperience is Also an Issue
Let’s face it: Rider inexperience is a factor, too. E-scooters are still relatively new to the world and many people have little to no experience riding them.
Rental scooters come with no instructions or real requirements beyond having a credit card. Many first-time scooter users don’t realize there’s a hand brake and a foot brake, causing them to brake wildly for a little while until they get used to it.
If you just hop onto a scooter and gun the accelerator, you’re at risk of crashing and being thrown off the scooter. A new rider might have trouble avoiding debris in the road or handling a rough pavement surface. You could even cause a catastrophic multi-vehicle crash.
In an Accident? The Scooter Company Doesn’t Care
At Sally Morin Personal Injury Lawyers, we’ve seen another big issue arise with e-scooters and road accidents. The e-scooter companies don’t want to take responsibility when their customers are injured or when their customers injure other people.
If you buy or rent a scooter and get in an accident, get ready for the scooter company to say, “Not our problem!” At some point, you probably signed a form or automatically agreed to something by using their product. That means every company involved – including your own insurance – might point to the tiny fine print that says you assumed all the risk.
But that’s not the final word on getting compensation for your accident. Don’t back down just because they put up a fight.
As experienced California scooter accident lawyers, we’ve helped plenty of scooter riders seek valuable compensation after severe accidents. We know the games scooter companies and insurance carriers try to play with injured victims – and we know how to beat them at their own game.
We’re here to listen to your story, take you seriously, and help you secure the money you need to move forward with your life. Here at our law office, lots of us are scooter riders and cyclists, so we’re not joking when we say we genuinely understand your situation!
We Handle Your Accident Claim So You Can Focus on Your Life
After an accident, contact the attorneys at Sally Morin Personal Injury Lawyers. We handle many types of personal injury claims, including scooter accident claims. We believe you should be able to focus on recovering from your accident while we handle the legal details.
We truly care about the people of California. Contact us today for a free online case evaluation.
Some of the risks of riding these scooter share e-scooters are that number one, the scooters themselves are pretty dangerous in certain conditions. If you’re just cruising around at a nice, mellow, flat space where there’s no traffic, well, these could be really fun, but if you’re out using these for transportation, getting to and fro, you’re engaging with other vehicles, you’re in traffic, you’re dealing with road hazards, they can be very dangerous. They’re not very visible, they have no lights, they just look like somebody walking. A lot of times you can’t even tell that somebody is on a vehicle, so you’re not really given the respect that another vehicle even a motorcycle or scooter is given and you’re not treated as well as a pedestrian, people are looking at you like, why are you riding that scooter? You shouldn’t be taking that part of the road or you shouldn’t be on the sidewalk.
Nobody wants you, the pedestrians don’t want you, the motorists don’t want you. So it’s really a tough spot to be, so these things are dangerous. And then another thing is that rider experience is a key factor because although maybe it’s not that hard to ride on it, you just gun the accelerator there’s two brakes, big deal, well, there’s a brake on the hand and usually one on the foot, but it’s the awareness and being on a small vehicle in traffic that takes a lot of experience. And for you just to hop on and off this thing every once in a while, it can be very dangerous.
Another real risk is the fact that these ride share e-scooter companies don’t want to take a lot of responsibility if you get injured. They also don’t want to take responsibility if you injure someone else. So you really want to read the fine print when you’re signing up for these programs and going to use these scooters because you will likely not be covered and your own insurance may also deny coverage because you’re on a motorized vehicle that’s not under your specific insurance coverage. So those are some of the risks of using these. But I understand they’re super fun and people are going to use them. So if you do get into an e-scooter accident, you want to seek consultation from a lawyer who helps people in those types of accidents.
