What happens if you have been injured whilst riding an e-scooter?
If you are injured whilst riding an e-scooter, you may be able to seek compensation.
There are various ways in which e-scooter riders might be injured, including:
- vehicles failing to give way to e-scooters when those vehicles are emerging from junctions;
- vehicles turning into junctions across an escooter path;
- vehicles colliding with e-scooters whilst overtaking;
- collisions involving heavy goods vehicles;
- e-scooter riders being hit by opening vehicle doors; and
- defective / dangerous road surfaces, including pot holes.
We appreciate that after being seriously injured it is not always possible to obtain the details of the person at fault or of potential witnesses. If you do not have these details, we will gather this information from the emergency services and notify the defendant and their insurer of your claim.
What happens if you have been injured by an e-scooter?
There are various ways in which people might be injured by negligent e-scooter riders, including:
- e-scooters colliding with pedestrians crossing the road;
- e-scooters being ridden on pavements or cycle lanes;
- e-scooters that have been modified to unsafe speeds;
- tripping over e-scooters left on pavements; and
- hit-and-run incidents.
As e-scooters do not have registration plates, e-scooters and their riders can be difficult to track down. If you were able obtain the name and contact details of the rider at the scene this will be very useful. If not, we can investigate this for you.
If the e-scooter was part of a rental scheme, we will write to both the rider and the insurer notifying them of your potential claim. If the e-scooter was privately owned and not insured, your claim will likely be brought against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB).
At Bolt Burdon Kemp we are campaigning for the government to legislate to make the registration and insurance of e-scooters compulsory, so that injured people can access the damages that they deserve.
How we will prove your claim
Whether you were injured whilst riding an e-scooter or you were hit by an e-scooter, we will seek to establish that the defendant was negligent and caused the accident by relying on a variety of evidence. This might include:
- CCTV footage;
- statements taken from you and other witnesses;
- a police report;
- photographs of the accident scene; and
- expert reconstruction evidence.
What compensation will you receive?
The amount of compensation that you receive will depend on the severity of your injuries and your losses. The aim of bringing a personal injury claim is to put you back in the financial position that you would have been in, as far as that is possible, had the accident not occurred.
Once we have obtained medical evidence in relation to your injuries and also evidence of your financial losses, we will be able to advise you on how much your claim could settle for or how much the court is likely to award you.
The past and future losses that we can look to recover for you include:
- your pain and suffering caused by your injuries;
- loss of earnings;
- care and assistance (this could be from friends and family or from private carers);
- treatment costs;
- travel expenses; and
- damaged possessions.
We appreciate that you may suffer financial hardship whilst the claim is ongoing, particularly if you are unable to work because of your injuries. We are experienced in obtaining interim compensation payments during the claim to help ease your money worries. We will also look to the defendant’s insurer to engage with us in funding rehabilitation for you to ensure that your recovery progresses as quickly as possible.
Our blogs on e-scooters:
For more information on e-scooter accidents, we have a number of blogs on our website:
- Electric Scooters: The law and what to do if you are involved in a collision
- A Contemporary Danger On Trial
- E-scooters – The future of transport?
- Uninsured E-scooters: What happens if I’m injured by an e-scooter?
- E-scooters for children – a brain injury waiting to happen?
Contact us
For further information or for free advice about bringing a claim following an incident involving an e-scooter, contact one of our expert solicitors on 020 3733 1044 or contact us online.
