Scooter Wrecks
Micro-mobility has taken over our state, and the most attention-grabbing piece of that is Scooters… and scooter wrecks. Scooters and e-bikes are popping up on every city block. Folks ranging from teens out for joyrides to executives escaping the gridlock morning commute are coasting alongside the vehicular traffic, creating safety concerns and leading to injuries. Much like the questions surrounding how to manage bicycle safety, the same problems and fears exploded with the sudden takeover of scooters.
Our team regularly attends city, county, and state meetings to voice our concerns for our clients and their safety when it comes to cycling and scooter commutes. If you or a loved one has been injured in a collision while on a scooter, our team will apply the unique knowledge we have collected by being on the forefront of these changes in our community. We will get our experienced investigators and experts involved quickly to ensure your rights are protected. We keep our ear to the ground and our voices raised to continue the fight for safer streets, making us even more capable of caring for our clients when those efforts fail or an uninformed motorist makes a devastating error.
Sharing the Road
At the beginning of 2019, an ordinance went into effect in Denver City banning the use of scooters on sidewalks. Other Colorado cities have followed suit. This came after an outcry from pedestrians who have had less than glowing reports of their shared sidewalk experiences. Scooters are now to share bike lanes with cyclists. However, bike lanes are not designed for sharing scooter traffic and are not well-developed in many areas. Additionally, some intersections are not clearly marked and don’t inform car drivers where that scooter rider will be crossing into their lane.
Statistics show that automobile drivers are not educating themselves on the rules of the road involving scooters, nor have they trained their eye to scan for on-coming scooter traffic. This is a major safety issue as scooter traffic increases. A driver who hits a scooter rider cannot simply rely on their ignorance of the law as an excuse. Responsible drivers have a duty to others on the road to educate themselves to the changes in the laws and proceed accordingly. Scooter drivers obeying the law are to be treated just like cyclists under Colorado law, and there are heightened standards to which automobile drivers must abide in order to share the road.