If a driver hit you while you were riding a scooter in Newport, your claim works the same way any other roadway collision does under Rhode Island law. The driver’s insurer is the first payer. Being partly at fault does not close the door on you, and you generally have three years to bring a claim. We represent injured riders in Newport.
Why Bring a Newport Scooter Injury Claim to Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd.?
Because a scooter claim is a Rhode Island crash claim, and Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd. represents injured people throughout Newport in other types of crashes.
Andrew O. Resmini is a partner at Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd. and is licensed in Rhode Island. He clerked for Associate Justice Daniel A. Procaccini in Rhode Island’s Superior Court system. Read Andrew’s background.
Check out our published results to see the kinds of recoveries we have made in previous crash claim cases.
The rest of this page walks through how a Newport scooter claim actually works. It covers who pays your medical bills, what happens when the insurer says you were partly to blame, what to do when the driver has no insurance, and how long you have to file.
Does It Matter Which Kind of Scooter You Were Riding?
Not for whether you have a claim, but it changes what the insurer will argue about.
A rider hit by a driver has the same underlying claim as anyone else hurt on the road. The Rhode Island rules on shared fault and on filing deadlines apply here just as they do to anyone else, and both are covered below. It is the same framework we apply to a Newport car accident claim, with a rider in place of another driver.
What changes is which riding rules applied to you. Rented mopeds, motor scooters, e-bikes and stand-up e-scooters all get called “scooters,” and which Rhode Island riding rules reach you depends on which machine you were on.
If you were riding a motorized bicycle or a motor scooter on a highway, the state expected you to be sixteen or older and to hold a valid operator’s license (§ 31-19.1-1). Interstate highways are closed to a motorized bicycle (§ 31-19.1-2).
Helmets depend on the machine and your age. On a motorcycle or a motor scooter, Rhode Island requires one under twenty-one, and for the first year after your first licence for that vehicle at any age (§ 31-10.1-4). On an electric bicycle, anyone under twenty-one has to wear one, riding or being carried (§ 31-19.7-3). And anyone fifteen or younger has to wear one on a bicycle or a scooter, on any road, bike path, park, school property or other public right of way (§ 31-19-2.1).
So an adjuster may point to a missing license, or to an interstate ridden where it should not have been, and use it to push fault onto you. Rhode Island divides fault rather than using it to bar a claim, so that argument can reduce what you recover. It cannot end the claim outright.
What Happens If Some of the Fault Was Yours?
Being partly at fault does not end your claim in Rhode Island. Under § 9-20-4, the fact that you were not fully careful, or that the danger was open and obvious, does not bar you from recovering. What happens instead is that the amount you receive is reduced by the share of fault assigned to you. That share is settled between you and the insurer, or decided by a jury if the two of you do not agree.
There is no cutoff percentage written into the statute. Someone found 90% at fault is still not barred; the award is reduced by that 90%. It is the same comparative-fault rule we cover on our Newport bicycle accident page, applied here to a person on a scooter, because the statute does not treat one mode of travel differently from another.
So when an adjuster tells you that you contributed to the crash, the argument is about how much you recover, not about whether you can recover at all.
Who Pays for Your Medical Bills and Losses?
The bill belongs to the driver who hit you, which in practice means that driver’s liability insurer. Rhode Island never adopted personal injury protection, so there is no policy of your own standing by to pay your medical costs regardless of who caused the crash. Nor is there a severity threshold you have to cross before you are allowed to claim.
Rhode Island does define a minimum set of liability limits that an owner’s policy must provide, at § 31-47-2(13)(i)(A). A driver carrying only that minimum may not have enough to cover a serious injury, which is what the next section is about.
None of that stops the treatment from starting on the day of the crash, and while the claim is open it is normally your own health insurance that pays for it, including care for a serious head or brain injury. Expect that insurer to want paying back out of any settlement you reach later. Knowing what it will ask for belongs before you agree to a figure, not after.
What If the Driver Has No Insurance or Not Enough?
Then you turn to uninsured motorist coverage, and it is worth reading your own policy before you assume there is nothing there. Rhode Island requires every auto insurer in the state to write that coverage at limits equal to the insured’s own bodily injury liability limits (§ 27-7-2.1(a)). It comes in lower only where the named insured selected a lower limit in writing. A driver who carries too little is treated by that same section as an uninsured one, so the coverage reaches a shortfall as readily as it reaches an empty policy.
More than one policy can be in play, too. Where the machine you were riding is registrable, it may carry cover of its own, and a rented one is normally insured by the rental company. Whether a household member counts as an insured person depends on the wording of the policy itself, not on the statute.
How Long Do You Have to Bring a Scooter Claim?
Three years, counted from when the claim accrues, is the outside limit on a Rhode Island injury case (§ 9-1-14(b)). Changing who you sue does not buy you more of it: the driver, the company that rented you the machine and whoever built it all sit inside the same three years. Let the date pass and the claim is normally finished, and only a narrow set of exceptions moves it.
A crash that kills someone runs on a separate three-year clock under § 10-7-2, starting from a different date and brought by a different person. The questions below cover who brings it and when it starts.
If you are anywhere near the end of that window, the sensible move is to talk to a lawyer now rather than later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my case have to be filed in Newport because that is where I was hit?
No, and it is not something you have to solve. Where a Rhode Island case is filed follows the people in it, not the place of the crash: it turns on where you or the person you are suing lives, or where that person can be found (§ 9-4-3). A Newport collision can end up filed elsewhere in the state. That changes nothing about the claim itself.
Can I still recover if I wasn't wearing a helmet?
Yes. Two of Rhode Island’s helmet rules settle it outright: § 31-19-2.1 for riders fifteen or younger on a bicycle or scooter, and § 31-19.7-3 for anyone under twenty-one on an electric bicycle. Under both, not wearing a helmet cannot be treated as your fault or put in evidence in a civil case. The motorcycle and motor scooter section, § 31-10.1-4, says nothing either way about helmet evidence. Rhode Island’s shared-fault rule is what governs: a share of fault reduces what you recover rather than barring the claim.
I don't own a car. Can I still use uninsured motorist coverage?
Possibly. That coverage can come from a policy you hold personally or, depending on its terms, from a household member’s policy. Whether you count as an insured person under someone else’s policy depends on that policy’s own wording, not on the statute itself.
Do I have to be badly hurt before I can bring a claim?
No. Rhode Island sets no minimum severity requirement before you can pursue a claim. Because the state is a traditional at-fault jurisdiction, you can seek compensation from the driver’s insurer for your losses as soon as you have them, without clearing a threshold first.
A scooter crash killed someone in my family. Who brings the claim, and by when?
The estate’s executor or administrator brings it, within three years of the date of death (§ 10-7-2). Where the wrongful act was not known at the time of death, those three years instead run from when it was discovered, or should have been. Loss-of-society and consortium claims are separate, brought by family members in their own names (§ 10-7-1.2).
What if the insurer says I was mostly to blame for the crash?
Then you are hearing one side’s opening view of the split, not a ruling on it. That percentage is settled between you and the insurer, or by a jury if it is not agreed. Under Rhode Island’s pure comparative negligence rule a rider found mostly at fault can still recover, and the percentage reduces the award rather than barring the claim. The adjuster’s number is something to argue about rather than a reason to drop the claim.
What if my rented scooter malfunctioned instead of a driver causing the crash?
Then the claim runs against the rental company or the manufacturer rather than a driver. The same comparative negligence rule under Rhode Island law still governs how any shared fault gets divided, whether the claim is against a driver, a rental company or a manufacturer.
What if the driver only has the state's minimum insurance?
The driver’s liability policy pays first, up to its limits. After that, a registrable machine may carry cover of its own, and a rented one is normally insured by the rental company. Whatever is still short is what uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage exists to reach, so a minimum-limits driver is rarely the end of the search.
Talk to a Newport Scooter Injury Lawyer
If a driver hit you while you were on a scooter in Newport, Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd. offers a free consultation to go over what happened and what Rhode Island law means for it. The filing window described above does not stay open, so it helps to talk with us as soon as you are able. We promise to call back within the hour if we are busy, and we personally take your calls, not a call center. Call 401-367-4655 or reach us online to set up a time to talk.