By Jo Anderson. Last Updated 3rd October 2023. If you’ve been injured in an accident involving an E-scooter, you may be wondering whether you could claim compensation. To be eligible to make a personal injury claim, you will need to prove that your injury was caused by a relevant third party breaching their duty of care.
Within this guide, we will discuss in more depth the eligibility criteria you must meet in order to make a claim for an E-scooter accident and how compensation is calculated for successful cases. Furthermore, we will provide examples of the evidence that could be used to help support your claim. This guide will also share some of the benefits of working with one of our solicitors on a No Win No Fee basis.
If you have any questions regarding E-scooter accident claims that this guide may not have covered, you can contact our advisors today. They can also offer you free advice for your potential claim.
To contact an advisor today, you can:
- Call 0800 073 8801
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- Contact us online.
How to make an e-scooter accident claim: a guide
Select A Section
- Can I Claim For Injuries From An E-Scooter Accident?
- What Is An Electric Scooter Accident?
- Can You Ride E-Scooters On Public Land?
- Liability For E-Scooter Accidents
- Evidence To Claim For An E-Scooter Accident
- Calculating E-Scooter Accident Claim Payouts
- Types Of Special Damages Which May Be Awarded
- No Win No Fee Claims For An E-Scooter Accident
- References
Can I Claim For Injuries From An E-Scooter Accident?
If you’ve been injured in an e-scooter accident, it can negatively impact your quality of life. Successful personal injury claims are based on the idea of a duty of care. For you to receive compensation:
- The party you’re looking to claim against needs to have had a duty of care towards you.
- They need to have breached this duty of care in some way.
- And, finally, this breach needs to have led to your injury.
If a party had a duty of care and breached it, causing you to become injured, you could claim if their negligence led to your injury. If you aren’t able to prove their negligence, your personal injury claim would likely not be successful.
For free legal advice, you can speak to our advisors at a time that works for you using the contact details above. They can inform you if you’re eligible to claim, can provide you with a reliable compensation estimate and can even put you through to a personal injury lawyer to begin claims proceedings.
What Is An Electric Scooter Accident?
An electric scooter accident is when you suffer an injury while riding an e-scooter, or being hit by one.
An example of how you could be injured by negligence includes, for instance, driving an e-scooter on the road and being hit by another vehicle because they ran a red light. In those circumstances, you could potentially claim as the road user had a duty of care that was breached by crashing into you.
Every road user in the UK has a duty of care to one another as established in the Road Traffic Act 1988 and The Highway Code. To learn more about the legality of using an electric scooter, please read on.
Examples of substandard care by road users include:
- Accidents at a junction caused by, for instance, a car going above the speed limit and slamming into you as you were turning into the road.
- A dooring accident. This is when a car user doesn’t properly check for approaching traffic when opening a car door, resulting in the car door slamming into you.
- Dangerous driving, such as a drunk driver swerving into you after losing control of their vehicle.
You could also be looking to claim due to an injury caused by poor road conditions. If this is the case and you injury wasn’t caused by reckless riding on your behalf, you may be able to claim against the local council or Highway England.
This would be because most public roads are supposed to be kept to a safe standard by these bodies. They should be safe to be used by the rented electric scooter.
The duty of care for controllers of public spaces, which includes local councils, is established in the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957.
Can You Ride E-Scooters On Public Land?
Part of making a valid claim for an e-scooter accident depends on whether you own or are renting the vehicle and where you are riding it. This is because if you were riding the vehicle in an area that it isn’t legally allowed to be, you might find it difficult to claim.
If you own a private electric scooter, due to it not potentially not having features such as signalling capabilities or the ability to have an MOT, they aren’t allowed to be driven on public roads. Therefore, they’re only allowed to be driven in the areas specified above. For use on private land, you would need to have the permission of the landowner.
For renting purposes, you can only use them on cycle lanes and roads within the specified areas that the e-scooter is allowed to travel within. What’s more, you can only currently use it within the cities that are currently trialling them.
To learn more about claiming for an e-scooter accident, please call our advisors for free legal advice. They’re available 24/7. They’re friendly, knowledgeable and would be more than happy to help. Please get in touch with them using the details above.
Liability For E-Scooter Accidents
Being able to claim successfully for an e-scooter accident depends on who was at fault for the injury. If you weren’t at fault, you would still need to prove that another party’s negligence led to your injury.
There are legal complications regarding claiming if, for example, you are a pedestrian that gets hit by an e-scooter due to it being driven poorly.
- If the e-scooter has been rented, it’s generally allowed to be driven on roads and cycle lanes. Therefore, as a pedestrian, you could realistically be hit by one, especially if it’s ridden on the pavement. If this is the case, you may need to claim through the electric scooter provider, as it’s likely that they have insurance.
- However, an e-scooter for private use shouldn’t be driven on roads or pavements. Therefore, this means that the driver has potentially broken regulations if you’ve been hit by one. Claiming against them directly can be difficult as they may not have the funds to pay compensation.
- If you’re an e-scooter rider and another road user (such as a car driver or motorcyclist) injures you through negligence on the roads, you should get their insurance details. You could claim against their insurance.
- Local authorities and Highways England are responsible for ensuring the maintenance of most of our roads. Therefore, if you suffer an injury due to (for example) a pothole not being fixed though the council’s been made aware of it, you could claim against them.
As previously established, if you’ve been hit by another vehicle due to the other driver’s dangerous driving, you may be able to claim through their insurer. This is because you could argue that they’ve broken their duty of care as a road user due to their recklessness.
Evidence To Claim For An E-Scooter Accident
For any claim, any evidence you could ascertain, that shows someone else who owed you a duty of care caused your injuries, could help strengthen the validity of your case and, therefore, the likelihood of you receiving compensation. This includes:
- CCTV footage
- Witness accounts
- Medical reports of injury
If you are a pedestrian who has been hit by a private e-scooter, you could also check your home insurer to see if you have cover for legal costs as part of your policy.
Call our advisors for free legal advice to learn more about claiming for road traffic accidents (RTAs) or an e-scooter accident. There are different RTAs that could occur on the road that can greatly affect your quality of life and be caused by no fault of your own. Call our advisors now using the contact details above.
Time Limit For Making An E-Scooter Accident Claim
If you are eligible to make a personal injury claim for an E-scooter accident, you will need to keep in mind the time limit for starting your claim. The Limitation Act 1980 sets a limitation period of 3 years from the date of the accident in which you must file a claim.
However, there are some claims involving scooter accidents where the limitation period might be different. For example, if a child is injured in an accident of this nature, the 3-year limitation period would pause until they turn 18. From this date, they will have until their 21st birthday to start a claim. However, during the period before they turn 18, a responsible adult, such as a parent or solicitor, could bring forward a claim on the child’s behalf as a litigation friend.
To learn how long you could have to make a personal injury claim, or ask about other exceptions to the 3-year time limit, you can contact our advisors.
Calculating E-Scooter Accident Claim Payouts
If you make a successful e-scooter accident claim, there are two potential heads of claim.
- Psychological and physical injuries caused by the accident that wasn’t your fault fall under general damages.
- The financial losses experienced due to the injury, however, fall under special damages.
Both of these heads of claim are calculated independently based on the evidence you’ve provided. Therefore, if you receive compensation for general damages, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll receive anything for special damages. This could be because you have provided insufficient evidence to highlight the financial losses caused by the injury.
The Judicial College analyse previous claim payouts, comparing the amount to the level and extent of the injury suffered. Furthermore, they’ve been able to build compensation brackets to help provide you with as reliable an estimate as possible.
Below is a list of injuries and their respective compensation brackets. The Judicial College provided these figures.
| Area of Injury | Severity | Amount of Compensation | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brain | (d) Less Severe Brain Damage | £15,320 to £43,060 | Brain injuries in this category will still result in the injured person having a good recovery. As such, they will still be able to return to work and take part in a normal social life. |
| Knee | (b) Moderate (i) | £14,840 to £26,190 | Injuries in this bracket include torn cartilage or meniscus causing minor instability, dislocation and other mild future disabilities including wasting and joint weakening. |
| Ankle | Moderate | £13,740 to £26,590 | This bracket includes injuries such as ligamentous tears and fractures leading to less serious disabilities such as difficulty walking on uneven ground and residual scarring. |
| Foot | Modest | Up to £13,740 | Injuries in this bracket include ruptured ligaments, simple metatarsal fractures and puncture wounds. |
| Shoulder | (b) Serious | £12,770 to £19,200 | Injuries in this bracket include a dislocated shoulder and lower brachial plexus damage resulting in neck and shoulder pain. |
| Wrist | (c) Less severe injuries | £12,590 to £24,500 | This bracket includes injuries that result in some form of disability that causes continuous stiffness and pain. |
| Fractures of Nose or Nasal Complex | (i) Serious or multiple fractures | £10,640 to £23,130 | Multiple or serious fractures causing multiple operations resulting to permanent damage to airways making it difficult to breathe. |
| Arm | (d) Simple Fractures of the Forearm | £6,610 to £19,200 | Simple forearm fractures. |
| Chest | (g) Fractures of ribs or soft tissue injuries | Up to £3,950 | Injuries in this bracket include rib fractures or soft tissue injuries leading to disability and serious pain for a few weeks only. |
| Fractures of Cheekbones | (ii) Simple fractures | £4,350 to £6,460 |
Injuries in this bracket are simple cheekbone fractures that require some reconstructive surgery where there is a complete recovery with no or close to no cosmetic effects. |
A personal injury claims calculator can provide you with a reliable general damages estimate. However, it can miss the nuances of a claim and therefore be inaccurate. Why not get in touch with our advisors for a free, no-obligation estimate that takes all of the circumstances of your case into account?
Types Of Special Damages Which May Be Awarded
Receiving special damages in a claim requires proving that the injury you’ve suffered has caused you financial loss. You could recover the costs of the following, for example:
- Loss of earnings you incurred when you were recovering
- Travel costs (such as to and from appointments)
- Medicine/prescription costs
- Loss of future earnings if you’re no longer able to work in your chosen field
- Care costs, such as needing a care nurse, if you’ve suffered a particularly serious injury
Furthermore, you would need evidence such as receipts, invoices and bank statements to prove these losses.
No Win No Fee Claims For An E-Scooter Accident
You may not be fully aware of the benefits of using the services of a No Win No Fee personal injury solicitor when claiming for an e-scooter accident. The merits include:
- You don’t have to pay legal fees either upfront or during the claim.
- The solicitor takes a small, legally capped percentage of the compensation as payment. This will be clarified with you before the claim proceedings begin.
- You also won’t have to worry about any solicitor fees if your claim is unsuccessful.
Our solicitors offer theirs services on a No Win No Fee basis. Why not get in touch to see if you could claim? Our advisors are available 24/7 so, whether you have a question or want to begin an e-scooter accident claim, call us. They’ll be more than happy to help. Our contact details are below.
- Call us on 0800 073 8801.
- You can provide us with injury details at office@accidentclaims.co.uk.
- Use our live chatbox to write to us.
- Contact us via our website.
References
For more useful information, please use the links below.
The Department for Transport provides road accident and safety statistics regarding Great Britain.
If you’ve broken a bone and want medical advice, please refer to the NHS website.
Have you suffered a toe fracture and want to see if you can claim? If so, visit our website.
To see if you can claim for a fractured finger, read our guide.
Want to know if you can claim for a broken nose? If so, read our post.