Last week, a class action lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against a handful of electric scooter companies over allegations of gross negligence “related to injuries sustained by both riders and pedestrians.” The suit itself was filed on behalf of nine plaintiffs who allege in the suit that they “sustained injuries due to the proliferation of electric scooters in their communities.” Bird, Lime, Segway, and Xiaomi are the four scooter companies named as defendants in the suit. It's important to note that two of the defendants, Bird and Lime, are currently operating in Denver, Colorado without proper permits.What kind of injuries have people sustained, though? Well, according to the suit, the plaintiffs have sustained injuries to their fingers, hands, faces, and knees. In many cases, the “plaintiffs needed stitches or surgery.”

Los Angeles County Courthouse; image courtesy of Spacemountainmike via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Among the allegations, which includes gross negligence on the part of the defendants, the plaintiffs claim the four scooter companies “were aiding and abetting assaults” and argues the companies “are liable because the scooters are unsafe, have manufacturing or design defects, and lack adequate instructions and warnings of the risks.”As a result, the plaintiffs are seeking punitive damages and monetary compensation to be determined by the court.So how have the four scooter companies responded to the suit? Well, so far Bird responded with a statement claiming the complaint “has been brought against the entire e-scooter industry” and pointed out that “shared e-scooters have become an important transportation mode for hundreds of thousands of people in 100 cities worldwide.” The statement further states:“We believe that the climate crisis and our car dependency demand a transportation mode shift, and clean energy vehicles like e-scooters are already replacing millions of short car trips. There is no evidence that riding an e-scooter presents a greater level of danger to riders than riding a bike. Cars remain the greatest threat to commuters, killing over 40,000 people in the U.S. Yearly.”While there are no public organizations that track scooter-related injuries in Colorado, a handful of hospitals have “anecdotal stories about the number of cases they've seen.” For example, physician assistant Valorie Baxter said staff at the Steele Street Urgent Care in Cherry Creek have seen “scooter-related injuries ranging from road rash to bad hand fractures, head injuries, and concussions.” She added, “There’s been an increase in the use of these scooters in various cities and it’s a growing market in Denver. The more scooters that are out there, the more gravity attacks we will have.”Dr. Andrew Ziller of Rose Medical Center chimed in as well and said “there has been an uptick at Rose Medical Center in the injuries. I wouldn’t say it’s dramatic, probably one to three a week.”

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Class action lawsuit accuses electric scooter companies of 'gross negligence' due to injuriesLawsuit Accuses Bird, Lime Scooters Of 'Gross Negligence'