Atlanta Electric Scooter Accident Attorney
Electric scooters are seemingly everywhere in Atlanta. Sadly, they’re far from safe and a lot of people are getting hurt. If you’ve been injured in an Atlanta scooter accident, you could be entitled to a substantial monetary award. Let Hasner Law help you fight to get the money you need and deserve.
Call our Fulton County law office at 678-888-4878 so that you can benefit from our more than 80 years of combined experience. Our Atlanta electric scooter accident lawyers provide a free initial case assessment, so don’t hesitate to reach out us to for help today.
How Will Hasner Law Help Me After an Electric Scooter Accident in Atlanta?
Electric scooters have taken the nation by storm. Atlanta, Georgia is no exception. There are currently more than 12,700 scooters across the city. People are ditching more traditional forms of transportation – including driving, biking, and walking – in favor of these dockless scooters.
However, scooters are problematic for several reasons. They’re motor vehicles, which means that they have to be driven on the road. However, many people operate Bird, Lime, and Bolt scooters on sidewalks. Those who do ride scooters in the road are forced alongside larger vehicles, much to the dismay of other drivers. This can create a hazardous situation and lead to a crash. Additionally, scooter operators often ignore critical safety laws, which puts themselves and others at risk.
When an accident involving an electric scooter occurs, the consequences can be quite traumatic. It’s usually the electric scooter riders who suffer the most. If you’ve been injured in an electric scooter accident in Atlanta, you could be entitled to compensation. That’s true, even if you share some of the blame for your crash.
While recovering compensation after an accident should be easy, it’s usually not. Insurance companies and at-fault parties will put forth a great effort to downplay your injuries and stop you from getting a financial award. Hiring the experienced Atlanta personal injury attorneys at Hasner Law can make a world of difference and help you get the money you deserve.
As our team navigates your electric scooter accident case, we will:
- Investigate the circumstances surrounding your electric scooter accident
- Work with law enforcement, gather evidence, and interview witnesses
- Identify all possible causes of your accident and determine who might be responsible
- Do our best to downplay your contributions to the scooter accident
- Handle all communication and negotiations with insurance companies, and
- Bring in experts to help us as we calculate what your case is likely worth.
Our goal is to force insurers and responsible parties to accept responsibility for your injuries and extend a fair settlement offer. If they don’t, our skilled trial attorneys will not hesitate before bringing your case to court. We’re well known for our ability to connect with and sway a jury, so this is certainly something interested parties will want to avoid at all costs.
Common Causes of Electric Scooter Accidents in Atlanta
Scooter accidents can happen for a variety of reasons. Leading causes include:
- Falls
- Inadequately or negligently maintained scooters
- Scooter malfunction, due to defect or vandalism
- Uneven pavement, sidewalks, or roads
- Unexpected acceleration
- Operating a scooter after dark
- Operating a scooter while distracted, drunk, high, or impaired
- Failing to obey local traffic laws
- Collisions with cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians, and
- Dooring (getting hit by a car door as you ride by).
Scooter accidents should be avoidable. However, if scooter companies, riders, or others are negligent, they can happen. Hasner Law will help you demand the money you deserve.
We Handle All Electric Scooter Accident Cases in Atlanta
Electric scooters might be a fun way to get around Atlanta, but they’re certainly not the safest option. Riders, pedestrians, bicyclists, and others involved in collisions can sustain severe, even life-threatening injuries. These injuries can have devastating immediate and long-term consequences.
At Hasner Law, our seasoned attorneys represent clients, who because they were involved in a scooter accident, sustained injuries that include:
- Road rash
- Broken bones
- Brain injury
- Neck injury
- Soft tissue damage
- Spinal cord injury
- Paralysis
- Burns
- Lost limbs
- Wrongful death, and more.
Injuries tend to be most severe when electric scooter riders aren’t wearing a helmet. Helmets save lives. Not wearing one doesn’t only put your safety at risk, but a financial recovery, as well. Others involved in your accident will undoubtedly try to say that you’re responsible for your injuries if you weren’t wearing a helmet. Under Georgia state law, those claims could cost you the right to recover compensation, or significantly reduce the amount of money you get.
How Common Are Electric Scooter Accidents?
Over the past four years, the number of scooter accident injuries has increased by nearly 300 percent. Between 2014 and 2018, emergency rooms across the nation have treated roughly 40,000 scooter accident victims. That figure doesn’t include young adults (aged 18 to 34) who sustained injuries but weren’t hospitalized after an accident.
Accident statistics indicate that scooter accidents are particularly common in Atlanta. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that Atlanta leads the nation in electric scooter accident fatalities. In 2019, alone, four scooter riders were killed in accidents on the city’s streets. Many of those accidents happened at night on streets without bike lanes.
In order to combat the city’s growing electric scooter accident problem, lawmakers have banned the use of dockless devices after dark. No one is allowed to operate an electric scooter between the hours of 9 PM and 4 AM. Additionally, the city has discussed “an accelerated plan for changes to [city] streets, creating safer, dedicated spaces for cyclists and scooter riders,” including “infrastructure upgrades that sacrifice car lanes in exchange for Lite Individual Transportation (LIT) lanes and wider sidewalks.” These efforts would provide scooter operators, bicyclists, and pedestrians with safe, dedicated spaces for travel.
Who’s Responsible For My Injuries After an E-Scooter Accident in Atlanta?
Electric scooters have taken Atlanta by storm. They’ve changed the way people commute through the city. The city’s laws are racing to catch up with the times. So, there’s quite a bit of confusion about how electric scooters have to be operated and who can be responsible for an accident, if one occurs.
However, scooter accidents aren’t that different from other types of motor vehicle accidents. Anyone who plays a role in an accident can be financially liable. This could include:
- Electric scooter operators
- Drivers of other vehicles on the road, including cars, motorcycles, and trucks
- Bicyclists or pedestrians
- MARTA or other government entities
- Bus drivers or transit companies
- Employers of negligent third parties
- Product manufacturers, and
- Scooter companies, including Bird, Boaz, Bolt, Gotchya, Jump, Lime, Lyft, Spin, and Wheels.
It’s important to make sure that you know who is responsible for your electric scooter accident. That’s why our team will roll up our sleeves and dig deep to get to the bottom of what happened. We’ll figure out the cause(s) and then use that information to discern who is at fault. When we pursue compensation from all negligent parties, we can maximize your recovery.
Damages Available in Atlanta Electric Scooter Accident Cases
Electric scooter operators are particularly vulnerable to severe, catastrophic injuries. Even if you’re wearing a helmet, a collision with a car, truck, or bus can be devastating. Just a simple fall off of your Lime scooter onto the sidewalk can change the course of your life forever. Between medical care, lost wages, and disability, you might incur astronomical costs and expenses.
Fortunately, you could be entitled to a financial award if someone else is at least partly responsible for your accident. When you file an injury claim, you can demand economic and non-economic damages for:
- Medical bills
- Lost income and wages
- Temporary and/or permanent disability
- Property damage
- Emotional distress
- Mental anguish
- Pain and suffering
- Disfigurement and scarring
- Loss of enjoyment of life, and more.
Insurance companies, scooter companies, and at-fault parties will try to get you to accept a lowball settlement offer. Or, they’ll fight you tooth-and-nail and try to deny you a financial recovery, at all. Hasner Law will stand up for you and fight to make sure that you get the money you deserve. We’ll bring back our demands with solid evidence and expert testimony. When we sit down to negotiate, their manipulative tactics won’t work.
Let Our Atlanta Electric Scooter Accident Lawyers Fight For You
After a scooter accident in Atlanta, you will only have a short period of time to file a lawsuit or injury claim. Typically, the statute of limitations in these cases is two years. You will lose out on valuable compensation if you don’t file your claim on time. So, there’s no time to waste. Call Hasner Law and schedule a free consultation with our Atlanta personal injury attorneys. Our law firm will help you fight to demand the money you deserve.
