Andrew Hardy zoomed around downtown Los Angeles on a rented stand-up electric scooter. While crossing a street, a car traveling 50 mph struck him on the e-scooter, sending him flying 15 feet in the air before crashing down to the pavement. He shattered two bones in each leg, his thighbone, a kneecap. The 26-year-old punctured a lung, fractured three vertebrae in his neck, and sustained head trauma.
If you or a loved one has been injured in an e-scooter accident, the Los Angeles e-scooter accident attorneys at the Law Offices of Howard Kornberg can vigorously represent you on your journey to being fully compensated for your injuries.
Scooting into disaster
Hardy was not wearing a helmet. Lucky to be alive, he was told he would probably be paralyzed for life. Five months later, he had learned to walk again.
Hardy’s accident is not uncommon. Less than 1% of injured e-scooter riders were wearing a helmet. The latest data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports e-scooters, e-bikes and hoverboards accounted for at least 41 American deaths, and more than 133,000 injured in accidents between 2017 and 2019.
In just three months in 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counted 192 scooter-related injuries, including nearly 50% head injuries and 15% traumatic brain injuries.
In 2018, the e-scooter boom began, and thousands of rentable stand-up e-scooters rolled into more than 100 cities worldwide. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, major U.S. cities saw more than 38.5 million rented journeys in 2018 alone.
In Los Angeles, emergency responders reported hundreds of scooter injuries were transported to the hospital in 2019. Dozens of injured riders were treated on site.
L.A. has tens of thousands of e-scooters flooding the streets, seemingly immune to regulations or laws. No matter of age or experience, if you can download the app to unlock the scooter, you can ride. There is no helmet requirement.
Four major companies rent e-scooters in Los Angeles:
- Bird
- Jump (owned by Uber)
- Lime
- Lyft
California law prohibits e-scooters from riding on sidewalks, and they can only ride on streets with speed limits of 25 mph or lower. They are told to keep to the right, as close to the curb as possible, but because of the whimsy e-scooters incite, the riders regularly flout the rules anyway.
When should I contact a lawyer?
Accidents involving e-scooters frequently result in severe injuries for victims. Riders of e-scooters are much more likely to sustain a severe injury in a collision with a traditional passenger vehicle.
It is not only the riders who can get injured, pedestrians and bicyclists can also be hurt in these collisions. Also, the occupants of traditional vehicles can be injured, especially if they try to avoid a collision with an e-scooter and crash in the process.
If you have been injured in an accident involving an e-scooter, contact the Los Angeles e-scooter accident attorneys at the Law Offices of Howard Kornberg by clicking here or calling 310-997-0904 for a free consultation.
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