If you were hurt riding an electric scooter in Birmingham, the first thing the other side will look at is whether you were following the rules. That matters more in Alabama than in almost any other state, because a single violation can be used to wipe out your entire claim.
Electric scooters have transformed how people get around Alabama’s cities. They’re accessible and affordable, but they’ve also raised new questions about safety and responsibility. This article explains how Alabama state law and local Birmingham ordinances apply to e-scooter riders, and what happens to your claim when a driver hits you. It also covers how Attorney April H. Collins can help after an e-scooter accident.
The Rise of Scooters and Scooter Injuries
E-scooter sharing took off around 2017, when better GPS, widespread smartphone use, and a growing need to move around cities came together. As e-scooter use has risen, so have e-scooter injuries.
A 2024 study in JAMA Network Open comparing electric and conventional scooters and bicycles found that e-scooter injuries rose roughly 45 percent every year between 2017 and 2022, and that injured electric riders wore helmets less often than riders of conventional scooters and bikes. Head injuries are the central concern in this research, which is why traumatic brain injury comes up so often in scooter cases.
E-scooter accidents can be caused by a variety of factors. Those related to scooter users include:
- Losing control after hitting a curb, object, or road hazard such as a pothole
- Riding on sidewalks
- Speeding
- Being inexperienced
- Failing to ensure visibility, especially at night
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s micromobility reporting, motor vehicles are the leading cause of fatalities for e-scooter riders. Drivers can endanger scooter users in many ways, including:
- Failing to yield while turning
- Driving while distracted
- “Dooring” (opening car doors into bike and scooter lanes)
- Driving into bike and scooter lanes
- Speeding
Alabama’s Scooter Laws
Alabama gives scooters their own definition. Under Alabama Code § 32-1-1.1, a scooter is a device weighing less than 100 pounds, powered by an electric motor, with a maximum speed of no more than 20 mph on a paved level surface under motor power alone. The statute expressly says the term does not include an e-bike, an electric personal assistive mobility device, a Segway, a motorcycle, or a moped.
That last part matters more than it sounds. A stand-up e-scooter is its own category in Alabama law, not a bicycle and not a motorcycle, and the state has not spelled out in one place which rules of the road follow it. In practice, riders are generally expected to follow the traffic rules that apply to other road users, including obeying signals, stopping at red lights, and yielding when required. Provisions riders are commonly pointed to include:
- Not operating on sidewalks (§ 32-5A-52)
- Riding as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable (§ 32-5A-263)
- Not traveling at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the circumstances (§ 32-5A-170)
- Using working brakes (§ 32-5A-265)
- Using a front white light and a rear red reflector or light when riding at night (§ 32-5A-265)
- Not parking in a way that obstructs pedestrian traffic (§ 32-5A-138)
Two of those, § 32-5A-263 and § 32-5A-265, sit in the part of the code written for bicycles. That is one reason local ordinances carry so much weight for scooter riders, and one reason an adjuster’s confident statement about what the law required of you is worth checking rather than accepting.
On the word “practicable”: the statute says riders must stay as near to the right as is practicable, not as far right as possible. Practicable accounts for potholes, debris, parked cars, and lanes too narrow to share. If an insurance company tells you the law required you to hug the curb, it is misstating the rule.
Do Alabama’s Helmet Laws Apply to Scooters?
Alabama’s helmet requirement, in Alabama Code § 32-5A-245, applies to motorcycles and motor-driven cycles. A motor-driven cycle, as § 32-1-1.1 defines it, is essentially a motorcycle or motor scooter with a small engine, under five brake horsepower and 150 cubic centimeters, along with bicycles that have a motor attached.
That covers seated gas-powered scooters and mopeds like a Vespa. It does not appear to reach the stand-up electric scooters this article is about, which the code defines separately and excludes from the moped and motorcycle categories.
The practical point stands either way, and it is the reason helmets come up in these cases at all: head injuries are the most serious risk e-scooter riders face. Wearing one is not just about compliance, and if you weren’t wearing one, that fact alone doesn’t end your claim. Our post on Alabama’s motorcycle helmet law covers how the requirement works for motorcycles and motor-driven cycles.
Birmingham’s Scooter Ordinances
In addition to state law, scooter riders must follow the local rules in their cities, and for e-scooters those local rules often do the real work. In Birmingham, Ordinance No. 20-24 sets out the rules for scooters, and it differs from state law in a few notable ways.
- Parking: While state law also limits where scooter users can park, Birmingham’s rules are more specific. Scooters must be parked on a curb or in a rack or corral. Parked scooters cannot block bus stops, pedestrian crosswalks, accessibility ramps, or driveways, and there must be at least four feet of clearance between the parked scooter and the sidewalk.
- Age restrictions: People under age 19 cannot rent scooters in Birmingham without parental permission.
- Time restrictions: Birmingham does not allow scooter rentals from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. The city may also restrict rentals during special events or weather emergencies.
If you were riding outside Birmingham, check that city’s ordinance rather than assuming these rules carry over. Hoover, Homewood, Mountain Brook, and other metro municipalities each set their own.
Who Can Be Held Responsible After a Scooter Crash?
Riders often assume their only option is a claim against the driver who hit them. Depending on how the crash happened, more than one party may be responsible:
- The driver: The most common claim, and the one the rest of this article mostly concerns.
- The scooter company: If the scooter itself failed, a brake that didn’t hold, a throttle that stuck, a stem that collapsed, the company that put it on the street may share responsibility for maintaining its fleet.
- The manufacturer: A design or manufacturing defect is a separate claim from a maintenance failure, and it is worth preserving the scooter’s ID number and photographing the machine before it disappears back into the fleet.
- A government body: If a pothole, a missing sign, or a badly maintained street caused the crash, the city or county may be a defendant. These claims run on a much shorter clock. Alabama Code § 11-47-23 requires a claim against a municipality to be presented within six months, and § 11-47-192 requires it to be a sworn statement filed with the city clerk. Six months can pass before a seriously injured rider has finished treatment.
Because a road hazard claim is both common in scooter cases and subject to that six-month window, it is worth asking about early rather than after the fact.
What the Rental Agreement Does to Your Claim
If you rented the scooter through an app, you agreed to a contract before your first ride, and most riders have never read it. Those agreements typically include broad liability waivers and, in many cases, a clause requiring disputes with the company to go to arbitration rather than court, sometimes with a class action waiver attached.
A few things worth knowing:
- Those terms generally govern your claim against the scooter company, not your claim against a driver who hit you. A negligent motorist is not a party to your rental agreement.
- Waivers are not automatically enforceable for everything, and how far one reaches is a legal question rather than a settled one.
- Keep the ride record. The app shows your route, time, and the specific scooter, which is evidence you cannot recreate later.
- If you were riding your own scooter rather than a rental, none of this applies, but questions about the manufacturer and about your own insurance coverage become more important.
Bring the rental agreement to your lawyer along with everything else. It affects which claims are worth pursuing and in what forum.
What Scooter Laws Mean for Birmingham E-Scooter Riders
If you are hit by a car while riding an e-scooter, you can file an injury claim. To win, you’ll have to prove the driver was negligent, meaning they failed to act with the care a reasonable person would have used under the circumstances, and that the failure caused your injury. Once you prove negligence, you may be entitled to money for your injuries. However, there is a wrinkle.
In an injury claim, the law looks at everyone’s behavior before the accident. In most states, an injured person who is partly at fault can still recover something. Alabama follows a harsher rule called contributory negligence. Under it, if a court or jury finds the injured person was even 1 percent at fault, they recover nothing.
This is why the rules above matter so much to a scooter rider. If a driver claims you were breaking a state or local rule when the crash happened, they will try to use contributory negligence against you. Two things are worth understanding about that argument. First, breaking a rule is not automatically the same as causing the crash; the conduct has to have actually contributed to the collision. Second, contributory negligence is generally no defense to wanton conduct, meaning conduct carried on with reckless or conscious disregard for the safety of others.
An experienced Alabama injury attorney can help you work out whether any of that applies to your case rather than taking an adjuster’s word for it. If your crash caused a head injury, our brain injury lawyers can explain what those claims involve. Many of the same rules also apply to riders on two wheels, which our bicycle accident lawyers deal with regularly.
What If the Driver Who Hit You Had No Insurance?
A scooter rider hit by an uninsured driver often has more options than they realize. Under Alabama Code § 32-7-23, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is part of an Alabama auto policy unless the named insured rejected it in writing, and it covers you as an insured person rather than covering one particular vehicle.
That means if you own a car with UM coverage, or in some cases live in a household with a policy that covers you, that coverage may apply even though you were on a scooter and not in your car when the crash happened. Bring your policy to your lawyer before assuming there is nothing to recover.
Get Legal Help After a Scooter Accident
Scooters may be small, but the legal consequences of a crash can be significant. If you’ve been hurt in an e-scooter accident in Birmingham or anywhere in Alabama, Collins Law can help you understand your rights. Our team will investigate your accident and explain how the law applies to your case. We’ll also work to recover the money you need to cover your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. To learn more, call 205-588-1411 or use our online contact form to schedule a free consultation.
