Hayward, CA Scooter Accident Lawyers

Downtown Hayward is built for short trips. B Street puts City Hall, the courthouse and the Hayward BART station within a few blocks of each other, students come down Carlos Bee Boulevard from Cal State East Bay, and riders cut across Mission Boulevard and Foothill Boulevard to catch a train. An electric scooter makes that trip in five minutes, in the same lane as commuter traffic and delivery trucks.

When a driver turns across a scooter rider there is nothing between the rider and the pavement. Our Hayward scooter accident lawyers represent riders hit by cars at driveways and intersections, riders thrown by potholes and steel plates, riders hurt when a rented scooter failed under them, and people on mobility scooters struck in crosswalks. GJEL Accident Attorneys has recovered more than $980 million for injured clients since 1972, and we charge no fee unless we recover money for you.

Where scooter riders get hit in Hayward

Downtown and the ride to Hayward BART

Most of the scooter crashes we hear about happen within a mile of the BART station. Riders come along B Street and Foothill Boulevard toward the platform while drivers hunt for parking near City Hall and pull out of angled spaces and driveways into a lane a rider is already in. A driver scanning for another car does not register a scooter, and the rider goes over the handlebars onto hands and face.

Mission Boulevard and Foothill Boulevard

Mission Boulevard is State Route 238 through Hayward, and Foothill Boulevard runs parallel until the two meet downtown near B Street. Neither gives a scooter protected space. The pattern is a driver turning right across a rider at a shopping center entrance, a driver turning left across an oncoming rider, or a lane change into someone nobody looked for. On a state route the California Highway Patrol’s Hayward Area office writes the report, not Hayward Police.

Tennyson Road, Hesperian Boulevard and the campus hill

Hesperian Boulevard past Chabot College and Southland Mall carries the short trips a scooter is made for. Tennyson Road meets the freeway at the Tennyson Road and I-880 interchange, one of the worst places in Hayward to be outside a car: four people walking and eight on bicycles were hit there between 2010 and 2014, a cyclist was killed in a hit and run in October 2016, and a woman walking with her baby was killed there in 2015. Coming down Carlos Bee Boulevard from Cal State East Bay is its own problem, because a small wheel gathers speed on that grade.

Potholes, broken pavement and construction zones

A scooter wheel is a few inches across. A pothole, a sunken utility cut, a lifted pavement seam or a steel plate left in a work zone stops that wheel and throws the rider forward. Nobody hit them, so the rider assumes there is no claim. Usually there is one, against the public entity or contractor responsible for that road, and it carries a much shorter deadline. Photograph the defect the same day, because crews repair the exact hole that hurt you and the proof goes with it.

The rules that apply to an e-scooter rider in Hayward

Electric scooters have their own section of the California Vehicle Code, section 21235, and adjusters read it more carefully than most riders ever do.

• No riding on the sidewalk. Section 21235 keeps e-scooters off sidewalks, and this is the first argument an insurer reaches for when a rider is hit at a driveway. It can reduce the value of a claim. It does not end one, and it does not excuse a driver who never looked.
• Helmets are required under 18. An adult riding without one has broken no law. Expect the insurer to raise it anyway in a head injury claim, and expect us to answer it with medical evidence rather than argument.
• One rider at a time. Passengers are not allowed. When two people were on the deck, the insurer tries to put all of the fault on the rider and none on the driver who turned across them.
• 15 miles an hour. E-scooters are limited to 15 mph. That number matters in reconstruction, because a driver who says a rider came out of nowhere at speed is describing something the machine cannot do.

California follows pure comparative negligence. If you share some of the blame, your recovery is reduced by your share and not erased. A rider who was on the sidewalk, riding without a helmet, or carrying a friend still has a claim against the driver who hit them.

Mobility scooter riders hit in Hayward crosswalks

Not every scooter case involves a rental. We also represent people who use a mobility scooter or a power chair to reach a store, a bus stop on Mission or Hesperian, or a medical appointment, and who were hit crossing the street. The law treats these riders better, which is worth knowing before an insurer calls you.

A person on a mobility scooter is a pedestrian. Vehicle Code section 21950 requires a driver to yield to a pedestrian in a marked or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, and every Hayward intersection has a crosswalk whether or not anyone painted lines on it. Section 21954 covers crossings away from an intersection, where a driver still has to use due care. A mobility scooter also moves slowly, so a driver who says the rider darted out is describing something that did not happen. These claims overlap with the work of our Hayward pedestrian accident lawyers and our statewide pedestrian accident work.

Who pays after a Hayward scooter accident

California’s minimum liability limits do not cover a broken wrist and a head injury, let alone surgery, so we look at every source:

• The driver’s liability policy, any umbrella policy, and the employer’s coverage when the driver was working. Delivery and rideshare drivers carry commercial coverage that often applies.
• Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage under Insurance Code section 11580.2. Riders miss this one. If you own a car, that coverage follows you onto a scooter and answers a driver who flees or carries too little insurance. Our page on uninsured motorist coverage explains it.
• The public entity that controlled the road when a pothole, a broken surface, a dead signal or an unsafe work zone caused the fall. A claim against the City of Hayward, Alameda County, Caltrans, BART or AC Transit must be presented within six months under Government Code section 911.2 before any lawsuit is possible.
• The rental operator, when it put a scooter on the street it knew or should have known was unsafe, or failed to inspect and maintain its fleet.
• The manufacturer of the scooter or a failed component. A product claim does not require carelessness, only that the product was unreasonably dangerous.

When the scooter failed, and what the rental agreement really says

Some crashes have no driver in them at all. A brake grabs or does nothing. A folding mechanism gives way at the stem while the rider is moving. A battery overheats. There the machine is the case, and the most important thing you can do is keep it. Do not repair your own scooter and do not let anyone take it. If it was a rental, photograph the identification number on the deck before you leave, so we can require the company to preserve that unit, its maintenance history and its ride data.

Rental riders tell us the same thing: they tapped through a long user agreement on a phone and assume they signed away everything. Those agreements do contain broad waivers and, almost always, an arbitration clause. They do less than riders fear. A rental waiver does not release the driver who turned across you, the city that left a hole in the road, or a manufacturer whose part broke, and California limits how far any business can contract away responsibility for its own conduct. We read the version in effect on the day you rode, not the one posted today.

What to do in the first days after a Hayward scooter crash

1. Get examined even if you got up and walked away. Head and internal injuries surface hours later, and a gap before the first medical visit is what an adjuster points to.
2. Make sure a report is written. Hayward Police handle city streets; the CHP covers I-880, SR-92 and Mission Boulevard. Get the report number before you leave.
3. Collect the driver’s name, license, plate and insurance, and the names and numbers of witnesses. Witnesses at a downtown intersection are gone in two minutes.
4. Photograph the scene from where you were riding, the car, the scooter, the pothole or plate if there was one, and your injuries as they heal.
5. Keep the scooter, your helmet and the clothes you were wearing. Torn clothing tells a jury about speed and impact.
6. Do not give a recorded statement to the driver’s insurer and do not accept a quick payment through a rental app. A release signed for a few hundred dollars ends the injury claim too.
7. Call a lawyer while the video still exists. Businesses along B Street and Mission Boulevard record over their footage within days.

Scooter injuries, Hayward hospitals and what the claim covers

Riders fall forward with their hands out, so wrist and forearm fractures are the signature injury, often needing plates and screws and months of therapy. Facial and dental fractures come next, because a rider without a helmet has nothing protecting the jaw and cheekbone. Then head injuries, collarbone fractures, and road rash deep enough to need grafting and to scar permanently. Riders hurt in Hayward are usually treated at St. Rose Hospital on Calaroga Avenue or at Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, the closest Level II trauma center, with the most severe injuries going to Highland Hospital in Oakland.

Head injuries deserve their own warning. A normal CT scan does not rule out a concussion or a mild traumatic brain injury. Headaches, light sensitivity, memory trouble and irritability can appear days later, and the insurer will argue that what it cannot see on imaging is not real. Those cases are handled with our Hayward brain injury lawyers, and our page on concussion injuries explains what the medical proof looks like.

Your claim covers medical care already received and care still ahead, lost wages and any lasting reduction in what you can earn, the scooter and gear, and the pain, disability, scarring and lost quality of life the crash caused. We do not quote a number before we know the medicine. What a built case is worth shows up in our verdicts and settlements.

Deadlines, and how our Hayward scooter accident lawyers build the case

You have two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, and two years from the date of death in a wrongful death case. If a public entity shares the blame, the six month claim deadline in Government Code section 911.2 controls, and missing it usually ends that part of the case. Pothole and work zone cases are the ones riders bring us too late.

We pull the Hayward Police or CHP report and go back to the scene while the sight lines, signal timing and pavement are still what they were. We send preservation letters to the driver, the rental operator and any public entity, demanding vehicle data, maintenance records and ride telemetry, and we canvass nearby businesses for video before it is overwritten. We retain reconstruction experts when fault is disputed, which in a scooter case it almost always is. We file in Alameda County Superior Court and prepare every case as if a jury will decide it, because that is what makes an insurer pay full value.

GJEL Accident Attorneys has handled personal injury cases and nothing else since 1972, has recovered more than $980 million with a 99 percent success rate, and is recognized by Best Lawyers in America. Andrew R. Gillin, California State Bar number 45226, leads the firm. See also our Hayward personal injury lawyers page and our work across Alameda County.

Hayward scooter accident questions

I agreed to the rental company’s terms in the app. Is my case over?

No. A rental user agreement does not release the driver who hit you, the agency that left the road in a dangerous condition, or the manufacturer of a part that failed. Even as to the rental company, California limits how far a business can contract away responsibility for its own conduct, and an arbitration clause is not automatically enforceable. We read the version that applied on the day you rode.

I was riding on the sidewalk when the car hit me. Do I still have a claim?

Usually yes. Vehicle Code section 21235 does keep e-scooters off sidewalks, and the insurer will assign you part of the fault for it. California uses pure comparative negligence, so your recovery is reduced by your share and not eliminated. A driver pulling out of a driveway still has to look before crossing the sidewalk, and that is where the real fault usually sits.

A pothole threw me off my scooter. Who is responsible?

Whichever entity controlled that piece of road, usually the City of Hayward on city streets, Alameda County in unincorporated areas such as Cherryland, or Caltrans on Mission Boulevard and the state routes. A contractor can be responsible for a plate or a trench it left behind. These claims must be presented within six months under Government Code section 911.2, so photograph the defect and call us quickly.

I do not own a car and have no insurance. Who pays my medical bills?

The driver’s liability insurance is the primary source, and you need no policy of your own to make that claim. If a relative in your household has auto insurance, the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on that policy may also reach you under Insurance Code section 11580.2. Your health insurance pays in the meantime and is repaid out of the recovery, and we negotiate those liens down at the end.

Talk to a Hayward scooter accident lawyer now

Call (510) 886-5440 or send us a message. A GJEL lawyer will review your crash for free, explain your options and start preserving the evidence today. No fee unless we recover money for you, and the firm advances the case costs. Available 24 hours a day. Hablamos español.