What follows are our general observations and opinions. It is not legal advice, and it is not a definitive statement of California law. Every injury claim turns on its own facts, and nothing here should be read as a prediction about any particular case.
Shared e-scooters have been part of Los Angeles streets for years now, and the injury claims that come out of them are consistently messier than a comparable car accident. The reason is that the usual answer to “whose insurance pays” often turns out to be nobody’s. Auto policies typically exclude motorized scooters, the scooter operators require riders to accept terms that limit how a claim can be brought, and the rider frequently has no applicable coverage of their own.
Our starting point is that the most important fact in these cases is whether you were the rider or you were hit by one. A rider agreed to the operator’s terms when they unlocked the scooter. A pedestrian struck on a sidewalk agreed to nothing, is not bound by any arbitration clause or liability waiver in an app they never opened, and is in a materially stronger procedural position as a result. Those two situations deserve separate treatment and we will take them in turn.
If you were riding
When you unlock a shared scooter you accept a user agreement. In our experience those agreements routinely contain a liability waiver and assumption of risk language, an arbitration clause with a class action waiver, and a short window for giving notice of a claim. California courts do not enforce every such provision, and our reading of Civil Code section 1668 is that an agreement purporting to exempt a party from responsibility for its own fraud or willful injury, or for violation of law, is against public policy. Gross negligence is also treated differently from ordinary negligence. But anyone relying on that argument should understand that the starting position is unfavorable and the operator will move to compel arbitration early.
The claims that tend to survive are the ones that are not really about the ride at all. A scooter with a defect — a stem that separated, a brake that failed, a throttle that stuck — points toward a product and maintenance claim against the operator that sits differently from a waiver of ordinary riding risk. A crash caused by a roadway defect points toward a public entity, and that route carries a hard deadline we write about separately. A crash caused by a driver points at that driver’s auto policy in the ordinary way.
If you were hit by a scooter
A pedestrian struck by a scooter rider has a straightforward negligence claim against the rider. The difficulty is collection rather than liability. Many riders have no insurance that responds, and this is where people are most often surprised: a personal auto policy generally will not cover a motorized scooter, but a homeowners or renters policy may include personal liability coverage that does, depending on the exclusions in that particular policy. It is worth finding out rather than assuming.
Identify the rider at the scene if you possibly can. Photograph the scooter’s identification number and the operator’s branding. The operator can associate a specific vehicle at a specific time with an account, and without that number a claim frequently cannot get off the ground.
The rules riders are supposed to follow
Rider conduct matters because it feeds directly into fault. Our reading of the Vehicle Code provisions governing motorized scooters is that they may not be ridden on sidewalks, that a rider must hold a driver license or permit, that helmets are required for riders under 18, and that there are restrictions on carrying passengers and on operating on higher-speed roadways. The City’s shared mobility permit program run by LADOT adds its own conditions on where devices may be parked and operated.
Where a rider was on a sidewalk, that is usually the decisive fact in a pedestrian claim. Where an injured rider was doing something the rules prohibit, expect it to be used against them — which brings us to the rule that reduces more recoveries than any other.
Comparative fault, and being realistic about it
California applies a pure comparative fault approach, so a person found partly responsible has their recovery reduced by their share rather than eliminated. In scooter cases the arguments made against injured riders are predictable: no helmet, riding at night in dark clothing, riding on the sidewalk, riding in a crosswalk, inattention, or alcohol. We would rather set that out plainly at the start than have someone learn about it after they have given a recorded statement.
What we would do in the first week
- Photograph the scooter, its identification number, the location, and the surrounding road or sidewalk surface before anything is repaired or the device is collected.
- Get the names and numbers of witnesses; these cases often have no police report.
- Request the incident be reported to the operator in writing, and keep the confirmation.
- Seek medical attention promptly and describe the mechanism of injury accurately to the treating provider.
- Check every policy in the household — auto, renters, homeowners, health, and any umbrella policy — before concluding there is no coverage.
- If a road, sidewalk, or traffic control defect was involved, note it immediately; the claim deadline against a public entity is much shorter than people expect.
Why the deadlines matter more here
Two clocks run faster than the general one. A claim against a city, county, or other public agency must go through a written claim presented within a short statutory period before a lawsuit is possible — our reading of the Government Claims Act is that missing it is usually fatal to the claim. Separately, the operator’s user agreement may impose its own notice requirement measured in days. Neither of these waits while you decide whether to pursue anything.
How we approach these
We think these cases are worth looking at, but we would not want anyone to take that as encouragement to expect a particular result. Coverage is genuinely uncertain, arbitration clauses are a real obstacle for riders, and comparative fault reduces recoveries. Whether a claim is worth pursuing usually turns on identifying a solvent, insured party — a driver, a public entity, a property owner, or the operator on a maintenance or product theory — rather than on how badly someone was hurt.
Where we take on an injury matter, our fees come from any recovery, costs are accounted for separately, and the arrangement is set out in a written fee agreement before we begin. No outcome is guaranteed, and past results do not predict what will happen in any other case.
If you were hurt on or by a scooter in Los Angeles and want an honest read on whether there is a claim worth bringing, call us at (310) 556-9692.
Related reading: our personal injury resource page — everything we have written on injury claims; the six-month deadline for claims against a public agency — the clock that ends roadway defect claims; who is responsible for a Los Angeles sidewalk injury — the adjoining owner and City analysis; and rideshare accident coverage in Los Angeles — how app-based coverage tiers work.
These are our general observations and opinions only. They are not legal advice, they are not a definitive statement of California law, and reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship with our firm. No outcome is ever guaranteed and past results do not predict future results.
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