After an Electric Scooter Accident in Denver: Your Next Steps, and Who May Pay

The content on this page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.

What to Do Right After an Electric Scooter Accident

Get medical help before anything else on this list. The other steps can wait until you’re safe and someone has looked at your injuries.

1. Get out of traffic and call 911 if anyone is hurt. Denver tells shared scooter riders to call 911 or visit urgent care if anyone is hurt after a crash.
2. Ask for a police report. Denver’s guidance after a shared scooter crash includes filing a police report, and a report gives you an official record of who was there and what they said.
3. Get the driver’s information if a car was involved. Colorado law requires the driver of a vehicle in a crash that injures someone to stop and remain at the scene until they’ve given their information (C.R.S. 42-4-1601). That includes the driver’s name, address, and vehicle registration number, and showing a driver’s license on request (C.R.S. 42-4-1603).
4. Photograph everything. Take pictures of the scooter, the car, the road surface, any pothole or debris, the traffic signals, and your injuries.
5. Write down the scooter’s number. On a Veo scooter, Denver says the vehicle number is located under the QR code in the center of the handlebars.
6. Ask witnesses for their names and phone numbers. People who stopped to help may not be easy to find later.
7. See a doctor even if you feel all right. A prompt visit starts the medical record that ties your injuries to the crash.

After the scene, keep your contact with insurers short and factual until you know the full extent of your injuries. For more on a police report after a crash in this state, see our guide to filing a police report after an accident in Colorado.

If You Were on a Shared Scooter in Denver

Denver runs its shared bike and scooter program with a single operator. The city says it’s partnered with Veo and that Lime and Bird devices would no longer be available for rent after May 16, 2026 (City and County of Denver).

The city’s answer to “What should I do after a crash with a Veo scooter or bike?” lists these steps:

• Call 911 or visit urgent care if anyone is hurt
• Try to get the device identification number
• File a police report
• Report the crash to Veo (the city lists Veo’s contact details on its program page)

Keep what you tell the scooter company short and factual.

Denver’s page adds that “for privacy reasons, only law enforcement can request this info,” which is one more reason to file a police report. Take a screenshot of your ride in the app as soon as you’re able.

A crash on your own scooter doesn’t involve the rental company at all. The steps at the scene are the same, and the claim depends on who or what caused the crash.

How Colorado Defines an Electric Scooter

Colorado law gives e-scooters their own definition. An “electric scooter” is a device:

• Weighing less than 100 pounds
• With handlebars and an electric motor
• Powered by an electric motor
• With a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour on a paved level surface when powered solely by the motor

That comes from C.R.S. 42-1-102(28.8). The same definition says an electric scooter “does not include an electrically assisted bicycle, EPAMD, motorcycle, or low-power scooter.” Colorado’s definition of “motor vehicle” also excludes electric scooters (C.R.S. 42-1-102(58)).

The motor vehicle exclusion can matter later. Some insurance and deadline rules turn on whether a motor vehicle was involved, and a scooter on its own isn’t one under that definition.

Colorado also sets basic equipment rules for e-scooters (C.R.S. 42-4-221):

• A white front lamp visible from at least 500 feet when lamps are required, such as at night
• A red rear reflector visible from 600 feet
• Brakes that can stop the scooter within 25 feet from 10 miles per hour on dry, level, clean pavement

Where You Can Ride in Denver

Under state law, a person riding an electric scooter “has all of the rights and duties applicable to the driver of any other vehicle,” with some exceptions, and is subject to local ordinances within cities and towns (C.R.S. 42-4-1412(1)). Colorado lets local governments regulate e-scooters in a way no more restrictive than they may regulate a class 1 electric bike (C.R.S. 42-4-221(8.5)).

Denver’s rules for riders, in the city’s words:

Question	What Denver tells riders
Can I ride on the sidewalk?	“It is illegal to ride on sidewalks unless you have just started or are about to end your ride (within that block).”
Where should I ride?	On bike lanes, bike paths, and streets, except where signs say otherwise; not on sidewalks
Can two people ride one scooter?	“One rider per scooter unless you are on a two-seated scooter.”
Where can I park?	On public property that doesn’t block pedestrian or vehicle traffic, leaving “at least five feet of width” on sidewalks

State law adds a few rules that apply everywhere in Colorado:

• Pedestrians come first on sidewalks and crosswalks. A rider must yield to pedestrians and give an audible signal before passing them (C.R.S. 42-4-1412(10)(a)).
• Local signs control. You can’t ride on a sidewalk or across a crosswalk where official traffic control devices or local ordinances prohibit it (C.R.S. 42-4-1412(10)(b)).
• One hand stays on the handlebars at all times (C.R.S. 42-4-1412(7)).
• Don’t hitch a ride. A rider can’t attach the scooter to a motor vehicle on a roadway (C.R.S. 42-4-1412(4)).

For more on how state law treats scooters and mopeds, see our overview of Colorado scooter and moped laws.

Who May Pay After a Scooter Accident

The question of who pays after a scooter accident starts with what caused it.

What caused the crash?	Who may be responsible	Rules to know
A car or truck	The driver	Three years, generally, when the injury comes from someone’s use or operation of a motor vehicle (C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n))
A defect in the scooter	The manufacturer, or a seller that is also the manufacturer	Two years, generally, for a product claim (C.R.S. 13-80-106)
A pothole or dangerous road	A public entity, in some cases	Written notice within 182 days and limits on what a public entity pays

Hit by a driver. A claim against the driver’s liability insurance is one place to start. If the driver was uninsured, your own auto policy may matter: Colorado auto policies must include uninsured motorist coverage for “persons insured under the policy,” unless the named insured rejects it in writing (C.R.S. 10-4-609). Whether that coverage reaches a scooter crash depends on your policy’s wording.

How that coverage plays out after a crash is covered in our post on a car accident with an uninsured driver in Colorado.

Medical payments coverage. Unless the policyholder turned it down in writing, or in the same way the application was taken, a Colorado auto policy carries $5,000 in medical payments coverage (C.R.S. 10-4-635). Check with your insurer whether it applies to a scooter crash under your policy.

A defective scooter. If a brake, battery, stem, or other part failed, Colorado’s product liability law covers injury “caused by or resulting from the manufacture, construction, design, formula, installation, preparation, assembly, testing, packaging, labeling, or sale of any product” (C.R.S. 13-21-401). Keep the scooter, or ask a lawyer how to get the rental company to preserve it.

A pothole or road hazard. Colorado waives government immunity for injury from “a dangerous condition of a public highway, road, or street which physically interferes with the movement of traffic,” under conditions the statute sets out (C.R.S. 24-10-106(1)(d)(I)). Under that provision, traffic signs, signals, or markings, or the lack of them, don’t count as physically interfering with traffic, and a condition isn’t dangerous solely because a facility’s design is inadequate (C.R.S. 24-10-103(1.3)).

You have 182 days from discovering the injury to give the public entity written notice. Colorado makes that notice “a jurisdictional prerequisite” (C.R.S. 24-10-109(1)). For claims accruing on or after January 1, 2026, a public entity pays no more than $505,000 to one person and no more than $1,421,000 in total when two or more people are hurt in the same occurrence, with no one of them receiving over $505,000 (Colorado Secretary of State).

How Fault Is Shared in Colorado

Sharing some of the blame doesn’t automatically end a Colorado injury claim. Colorado compares fault. So long as your negligence “was not as great as the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought,” you can still recover, and your percentage comes off the total (C.R.S. 13-21-111(1)).

In a scooter case, these facts can come up when fault is compared:

• Where you were riding, including a sidewalk where Denver prohibits it
• Whether you had the lamp and reflector the law requires at night
• Whether you yielded to pedestrians on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk
• The driver’s speed, attention, and right-of-way at the moment of the crash

Product claims follow their own fault rule: your share lowers the award without cutting it off, and the bar in C.R.S. 13-21-111 isn’t used (C.R.S. 13-21-406). Our guide to comparative negligence in Colorado walks through how shared fault works in a driver claim.

The Deadlines That Can Apply

An e-scooter accident can involve more than one deadline, and they don’t all start or end the same way.

Claim	Colorado deadline
A driver who hit you	Generally three years (C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n))
Other tort claims	Generally two years (C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a))
A scooter maker, over a defective part	A two-year limit, generally, running from when the claim arises (C.R.S. 13-80-106)
Against a public entity, such as a city, for a road condition	Notice in writing inside 182 days of learning of the injury (C.R.S. 24-10-109)

Which rule applies depends on the facts, including whether a motor vehicle was involved; the two-year rule for other tort claims is in C.R.S. 13-80-102. Which clock runs in your case is something a lawyer can check.

Colorado’s wider set of injury deadlines is summarized in our Colorado personal injury statute of limitations post.

What to Keep for Your Claim

The evidence in a scooter case can disappear quickly. A rental scooter goes back into service, a road crew may patch the pothole, and phone videos can disappear.

Try to keep:

• Your photos and videos from the scene
• The police report number
• The scooter’s device number and a screenshot of your ride, if it was a rental
• The scooter itself, if you own it, without repairs
• Your medical records, bills, and any work notes from your doctor
• The driver’s name, insurer, and registration number
• Anything that identifies the people who watched it happen
• Any messages from the rental company or an insurance adjuster

Keep a short daily note about pain, sleep, and what you can’t do. It can help later when an insurer or a lawyer asks how the injury affected your life.

Speak With a Denver Scooter Accident Lawyer

If you were hurt in an electric scooter accident, a Denver scooter accident lawyer can look at the police report, the scooter, and the scene. Our practice page on scooter accident claims in Colorado goes further into rider cases.

Since 2016, CGH Injury Lawyers (first called Cheney Galluzzi & Howard) has practiced from Denver, with its office at 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201. If you’re comparing firms, one fact: Kevin Cheney, who runs CGH as managing partner, belongs to the American Board of Trial Advocates, known as ABOTA.

If you’d like to talk it through, call (303) 209-9395 or use our Denver contact form, and you can ask about fees on the same call. We also take calls in Spanish at (303) 835-9177.

Frequently Asked Questions

Written by CGH Injury Lawyers.

Last reviewed: September 28, 2026.

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