Practice Areas

Electric Scooter Injuries and the Rental Agreement

A rented electric scooter comes with a contract. Tapping accept in the app usually means agreeing to arbitration, a class action waiver, and a release. Those terms bind the rider who accepted them. Someone struck by a scooter agreed to nothing, so their claim is a different matter entirely.

The Rules Of The Road

What California Law Says About Riding a Scooter

A shared scooter is a motorized scooter under Vehicle Code section 407.5: a two wheeled device with handlebars and either a floorboard you stand on or a seat with footrests, powered by an electric motor. That section excludes motorcycles, motor driven cycles, motorized bicycles, and mopeds, so scooters have their own rules.

Vehicle Code section 21235 sets those rules. A helmet is required only if the rider is under 18 years of age. The rider must hold a valid driver license or instruction permit. Riding on a sidewalk is prohibited, except as needed to enter or leave adjacent property. No passengers. The scooter must have a working brake, and it may not be parked or left on a sidewalk in a way that blocks the path for people on foot.

Where a scooter may go depends on the road. Under section 21235, a scooter may not be operated on a highway with a speed limit above 25 miles per hour unless it stays within a Class II or Class IV bikeway, and a local authority may raise that ceiling to 35 miles per hour by ordinance or resolution. Vehicle Code section 22411 separately caps the scooter at 15 miles per hour on all highways, bikeways included, whatever the posted limit is. Vehicle Code section 21230 allows a scooter on a bicycle path, trail, or bikeway unless the local authority with jurisdiction has prohibited it by ordinance.

These rules matter after a crash. When someone breaks a safety statute written to prevent the type of harm that followed, that violation becomes evidence. It cuts both ways.

The Contract In The App

What You Agree To When You Tap Accept

Renting a scooter means entering a contract with the company that owns it. The rider accepts it by tapping through a screen in the app, which almost nobody reads. The agreements differ between companies and are revised over time, but rider agreements for these services commonly contain the same four things.

Many of these agreements also include a window in which a rider can opt out of the arbitration clause and keep the right to go to court. That window is typically short, and it usually starts running when the account is created or when the first ride happens, not when someone is injured. The opt out is normally exercised by sending written notice in the exact way the agreement specifies.

Because the terms change and because the window is measured from a date already in the past, the only reliable move is to find the agreement on your own account, read the dispute resolution section, and act quickly if you want to opt out. Companies post their rider agreements on their websites, and a company can be asked for the version in force when the account was opened. Save a copy. After an injury, that document is one of the first things a lawyer will want to see.

Forum, Not Substance

What an Arbitration Clause Actually Changes

An arbitration clause changes where a claim is decided, not whether the rider was injured or what the injury is worth. The negligence law, the damages, and the burden of proof stay the same. The forum changes.

In court, a case is filed publicly, assigned to a judge, and decided by a jury, with broad discovery and a right to appeal. In arbitration, a private arbitrator decides, the proceeding is generally not public, discovery is usually narrower, and the award is final with very limited review. Arbitration agreements of this kind are generally governed by the Federal Arbitration Act. The class action waiver sitting next to the clause is a separate promise: the rider will bring claims individually rather than as part of a class or representative action.

California has a statute that speaks to how far a contract can go in excusing a party’s own conduct. Civil Code section 1668 provides that all contracts which have for their object, directly or indirectly, to exempt anyone from responsibility for their own fraud, or willful injury to the person or property of another, or violation of law, whether willful or negligent, are against the policy of the law. That is the text. Whether any particular clause in any particular agreement falls inside it is decided by a court on the facts of that case, and no web page can say how a particular clause will be treated. What is safe to say is that a release is a written document with edges, and the edges are worth reading before anyone assumes a claim is closed.

The Most Useful Distinction

If a Scooter Hit You, You Never Signed Anything

A rental agreement binds the rider who accepted it. It does not bind a stranger. Someone walking on a sidewalk who is struck by a scooter never opened the app, never saw the terms, and never agreed to arbitration, a class action waiver, or a release. Their claim against the rider, and against the company if the company is responsible for something, is generally not governed by the rider’s contract.

Injured pedestrians often assume the opposite. They hear that scooter cases go to arbitration, read that riders sign away their rights, and conclude there is nothing to do. The contract they never made is not their problem. Our page on pedestrian accidents covers how those claims are built.

The same logic reaches anyone else who never accepted the terms: a driver, a cyclist, or a person hurt tripping over a scooter left across a sidewalk. Recovering from a rider personally usually means finding insurance, and a homeowners or renters policy sometimes provides personal liability coverage for injuries the policyholder causes.

One caution in the other direction. Some agreements state that the arbitration provision reaches claims brought by people connected to the rider, such as a spouse or an heir, when those claims arise out of the rider’s own use. A family member bringing a claim tied to a rider’s injury is in a different position than a stranger struck on the sidewalk, and the agreement itself is the place to start.

Evidence And Deadlines

What to Save, and the Two Clocks That Run

Scooter evidence disappears faster than car crash evidence, because most of it lives on a phone and on a company server. Capture this in the first days:

The trip record in the app, screenshotted rather than described: start time, end time, route, duration. The scooter identification number, printed on the stem or the deck, which is the reliable way to tie a claim to a specific vehicle and its maintenance history. Photographs of the scooter, including the brakes, the throttle, and the wheels. Photographs of the place, showing the pothole, the broken pavement, or the vehicle involved, taken from several distances before anything is repaired. Names, plates, and numbers for everyone involved and any witness.

The in app incident report matters too. Operators provide a way to report a crash through the app or support channel, and rider agreements commonly make contact with support a step that comes before any formal claim. That report creates a dated record on the company’s own system. It is also a communication with a company that may later be adverse, so keep it accurate and factual, and do not guess at cause or fault.

Two deadlines control the case. The general deadline for a personal injury lawsuit in California is two years under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, which covers an action for injury to or the death of an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another.

The second clock is much shorter and it catches people. If a crash was caused by a dangerous condition of a roadway, such as a sunken utility cover, a broken bike lane surface, or a pothole a city knew about, the claim runs against the public entity that owns or maintains that road. Government Code section 911.2 requires that a claim relating to a cause of action for death or injury to person or personal property be presented not later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Six months, not two years.

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What Happens Next

How a Scooter Injury Case Moves Forward

Most scooter injury claims are worked up and resolved before any lawsuit or arbitration is started. That stretch has its own steps, and knowing them makes the wait easier to understand. Our guide to the pre-litigation process walks through treatment, records collection, the demand, and negotiation.

If a claim cannot be resolved on fair terms, the next step is a formal proceeding, a lawsuit or an arbitration depending on the agreement and the parties. Our guide to the litigation process covers each stage of a California lawsuit, from the complaint through discovery, mediation, and trial.