Bird scooter accident lawsuits are personal injury claims that stem from a crash involving one of Bird’s electric scooters, or e-scooters. The lawsuits claim that Bird or someone else was negligent and caused the e-scooter accident.
At Shouse Law Group, our California scooter accident lawyers represent people who have sustained injuries while using a Bird e-scooter. (We also bring Lime scooter accident lawsuits.) In this article, we discuss:
- Inherent Dangers
- Types of Accidents
- Common Injuries
- Available Compensation
- Bird’s User Agreement
- Forced Arbitration
- What To Do After a Crash
- Additional Resources
Inherent Dangers
When Bird announces that it is entering a new city in California, it drops off a fleet of e-scooters and lets you ride at your discretion. This practice leaves many cities scrambling to regulate e-scooter rides, as these vehicles are more versatile than bikes but far faster than normal pedestrians.1
While users are supposed to wear helmets and watch safety videos about how to ride Bird’s e-scooters, few actually do. Plus Bird’s maintenance reporting system often misses damaged vehicles that put subsequent riders at risk.2
Many Bird crashes involve pedestrians.
Types of Accidents
The uncertain rules about how to ride Bird’s e-scooters – together with reckless driving habits and the vehicles’ high speeds – have led to thousands of accidents involving Bird devices.3
These e-scooter accidents tend to fall inside one of the four following categories:
- The accident only involved the driver of the e-scooter: This typically involves uneven pavement, potholes, defective brakes, or riding downhill (where the e-scooter may go faster than its advertised limit of 15 mph).4
- The crash involved an e-scooter and a pedestrian: In many cases, the pedestrian and/or rider have earbuds and are not paying attention.
- The crash involved an e-scooter and a car: A common accident involves “dooring,” where someone in a parked car opens their door in the path of an e-scooter, leaving the rider inadequate time to avoid crashing into it.5
- A pedestrian tripped and fell over a stationary e-scooter: A California appellate court recently held in Hacala v. Bird Rides that Bird has a duty to locate and move its vehicles if they pose an unreasonable risk of danger to others.6
Common Injuries
According to a 2019 CDC study in Austin, Texas, nearly half of 190 injured e-scooter riders had a “severe” injury:7
- 3% of victims had skull fractures,
- 19% of victims had multiple fractures from the crash,
- 48% of victims had either a fracture, laceration, or abrasion to their head, and
- 35% of victims broke a bone other than their nose, finger, or toe.
In a 2023 study that looked at 293 e-scooter accidents, researchers found that accidents resulted in more serious injuries than bicycle crashes, particularly with regard to head and limb trauma.8
Only licensed drivers can ride Bird e-scooters.
Available Compensation
If you had an e-scooter accident after riding one of Bird’s vehicles, you may be eligible for compensatory damages for
- Past medical bills,
- Anticipated future medical attention and expenses,
- Lost wages,
- Reduced earning capacity, due to your injuries,
- Pain and suffering, and
- Loss of consortium for your family.
Bird’s User Agreement
Bird e-scooter accident lawsuits often have to overcome the liability waiver that Bird forces you to sign before renting your device. For example, some of the provisions include:
- An agreement that you will follow all laws and regulations related to riding an e-scooter – even if they contradict the scant riding guidelines provided by Bird’s instruction videos,9
- A release that waives Bird’s liability for injuries caused by a defective e-scooter,10 and
- A list of prohibited acts on a e-scooter that break the user agreement and absolve Bird of liability.11
Liability waivers are enforceable in California, though there may be ways around them depending on your case.
Forced Arbitration
A key component of Bird’s user agreement is Section 9, which forces you to arbitrate your claims in Los Angeles rather than take them to superior court. It also forces you to waive your right to join a class action.12
The only way to opt out of these provisions is to send a written notice to the following address within 30 days of your first Bird ride:
Bird Rides, Inc.
605 Santa Monica Blvd.
PMB 20388
West Hollywood, CA 90069-4109
Failure to do so makes it more difficult, though not impossible, to recover compensation from Bird for their role in your crash.13
What To Do After a Crash
- DO NOT ADMIT FAULT.
- If others are involved, do not leave the scene without exchanging information.
- Call 911 if necessary.
- Take photos of the accident scene, and gather the contact information of eyewitnesses.
- See a doctor even if you feel fine since some injuries take a while to manifest.
No matter what, contact a personal injury attorney to discuss whether you have a claim and how much money you can expect to recover in a settlement.
A 2018 class action lawsuit against Bird alleged it violated local nuisance ordinances and that the machines were “mechanically deficient.”
Additional Resources
Consider these other transportation options in California:
- Greyhound, Megabus, and Flixbus – Bus stations throughout the state.
- Amtrak, Caltrain, Metrolink – Train routes throughout the state.
- Uber, Lyft – Ride-sharing throughout the state.
- RentaBikeNow – Bike rentals in major cities.
- Hertz, Avis, Budget, Alamo, and National – Car rentals in major cities.
References:
- See for example, Christina Araviakis, “Birds Take Flight in Baltimore: The City’s Attempt to Regulate the New Electric Scooters,” University of Baltimore Law Review (December 7, 2018).
- Megan Rose Dickey, “Bird is Raising a Series D Round Led by Sequoia at $2.5 Billion Valuation,” TechCrunch (July 22, 2019).
- See for example, Mary Wisniewski, “Watch Out! Cities With Electric Scooters Have Seen Hundreds of Injuries, from Broken Arms to Brain Trauma,” Chicago Tribune (May 13, 2019).
- “Dockless Electric Scooter-Related Injuries Study – Austin, Texas, September-November 2018,” Austin Public Health (April, 2019).
- California Vehicle Code 22517 (“No person shall open the door of a vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so and can be done without interfering with the movement of such traffic, nor shall any person leave a door open on the side of a vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.”)
- See Hillel Aron, Trip-and-fall suit against Bird scooters revived on appeal, Courthouse News (April 10, 2023). Hacala v. Bird Rides, Inc. (Cal.App. 2023) 90 Cal.App. 5th 292 (“Bird’s general duty encompasses an obligation, among other things, to use ordinary care to locate and move a Bird scooter when the scooter poses an unreasonable risk of danger to others…We cannot find that public policy clearly supports an exception to the fundamental principle that a company like Bird is liable for injuries proximately caused by its want of ordinary care in the management of its property.”)
- Trivedi TK, Liu C, Antonio ALM, et al., “Injuries Associated With Standing Electric Scooter Use,” Journal of the American Medical Association 2(1):e187381 (January 25, 2019). See note 4.
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- Bird User Agreement at Section 1.7.
- Note 8 at Section 15.
- Note 8 at Section 1.8.
- Note 8 at Section 9.3.
- Janet Lorin, “Electric-scooter injuries pile up, but making the lawsuits stick is hard,” Los Angeles Times (January 25, 2019).