E-Bike and Scooter Crashes in a No-Fault System Built for Cars

Minnesota’s no-fault act was drafted in 1974, when the only two-wheeled question was the motorcycle. A half century later the streets are full of 750-watt pedal-assist bikes and app-rented scooters, and the statute has never been rewritten to mention them. So the coverage questions get answered the old-fashioned way: by running the new machines through definitions written for the old ones.

Do that carefully and you reach a conclusion most riders — and, frankly, more than a few adjusters — get wrong. An e-bike rider struck by a car in Minnesota is generally in a better insurance position than a motorcyclist struck by the same car: full no-fault benefits, plus uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage with a favorable limit-selection rule. The rider’s real exposure is the crash where no car is involved at all. I will walk through the definitions first, because everything else follows from them.

What the machines are, in the statute’s own words

Chapter 169 — the traffic code — defines both devices with precision.

An “electric-assisted bicycle” under Minn. Stat. § 169.011, subd. 27, is a two- or three-wheeled bicycle with “a saddle and fully operable pedals for human propulsion”, an electric motor “that has a power output of not more than 750 watts”, a battery tested to an applicable safety standard, and membership in one of three classes (or a switchable “multiple mode”). The classes, defined in subdivisions 15a, 15b, and 15c, are worth knowing because they show up on a mandatory label on the frame:

• Class 1 — motor assists only while pedaling, cuts out at 20 miles per hour;
• Class 2 — motor can propel the bike without pedaling, cuts out at 20 miles per hour;
• Class 3 — motor assists only while pedaling, cuts out at 28 miles per hour.

Critically, subdivision 4 folds the whole category into the parent term: “Bicycle includes an electric-assisted bicycle” — while excluding “scooters, motorized foot scooters, or similar devices.”

A “motorized foot scooter” under § 169.011, subd. 46 — the category that covers the shared rental fleets — is a handlebar-equipped device “designed to be stood or sat upon by the operator,” with no more than two 12-inch-or-smaller wheels and a motor capable of no more than 15 miles per hour on a flat surface. The statute walls the categories off from each other: subdivision 4(b) keeps motorized foot scooters out of the “bicycle” category, and subdivision 46’s closing sentence provides that an electric personal assistive mobility device, a motorized bicycle, an electric-assisted bicycle, or a motorcycle “is not a motorized foot scooter”.

The traffic rules track the split. E-bike riders take the bicycle rulebook, § 169.222, with a few additions: riders under 15 are prohibited outright — subdivision 6a(e) says a person under the age of 15 “must not operate an electric-assisted bicycle” — and subdivision 6b requires the class/speed/wattage label and bans modifications that push the machine out of its class unless the label is revised — or, for a machine that no longer fits any class, removed. Scooter riders get their own section, § 169.225: the rights and duties of a bicycle operator generally (subd. 1), but no riding on sidewalks except when necessary to enter or leave adjacent property, and no passengers (subd. 2), a minimum operator age of 12 (subd. 3), a helmet requirement for riders under 18 (subd. 4), required lighting after dark (subd. 5), and a ride-to-the-right rule with a dismount-and-walk procedure for left turns (subd. 6). Note the asymmetry: Minnesota law puts a helmet mandate on a 17-year-old scooter rider and none on the same 17-year-old aboard a 28-mile-per-hour class 3 e-bike. I did not write the statute; I just read it.

Is an e-bike a “motor vehicle” under the No-Fault Act?

No — and neither is a rental scooter, and this single definitional fact drives every coverage outcome that follows. The No-Fault Act carries its own definitions in Minn. Stat. § 65B.43, and its “motor vehicle” is a narrow creature:

“Motor vehicle” means every vehicle, other than a motorcycle or other vehicle with fewer than four wheels, which (a) is required to be registered pursuant to chapter 168, and (b) is designed to be self-propelled by an engine or motor for use primarily upon public roads, highways or streets…

An e-bike or scooter fails the definition twice over: both run on two wheels, and neither is registered — the registration chapter itself, Minn. Stat. § 168.002, subd. 18(d), excludes “a motorized foot scooter” and “an electric-assisted bicycle” from the vehicles chapter 168 covers. Nor is either one a “motorcycle” under the Act: § 65B.43, subd. 13 defines a motorcycle as a self-propelled vehicle on fewer than four wheels “which has an engine rated at greater than five horsepower,” and it then excludes electric-assisted bicycles by name. An e-bike’s 750-watt ceiling is roughly one horsepower; a shared rental scooter’s motor is smaller still. (Two traps sit at the margins. A home-built scooter with a genuinely large motor could cross the five-horsepower line and become a no-fault motorcycle. And subdivision 13 pulls in “a motorized bicycle as defined in section 169.011, subdivision 45” by name — a category where an overpowered or de-restricted machine that no longer qualifies as an electric-assisted bicycle can land. A rider who strips the speed limiter off a 750-watt bike is not just violating the anti-modification rule in § 169.222, subd. 6b — he may be riding himself out of pedestrian-grade no-fault treatment altogether.)

So the machines are neither motor vehicles nor motorcycles under the no-fault scheme. Three consequences fall out immediately:

First, no insurance obligation attaches to the device. The mandatory-coverage machinery of the No-Fault Act runs on the “motor vehicle” definition. Your e-bike needs no policy, no plate, no tabs. That is why the things are cheap to own — and why they bring no coverage of their own to a crash.

Second, a solo crash is outside no-fault entirely. The right to basic economic loss benefits under Minn. Stat. § 65B.46, subd. 1 belongs to a person injured in an accident “arising out of maintenance or use of a motor vehicle”, or struck as a pedestrian by a motorcycle. Hit a pothole, catch a rail, get doored by a parked scooter — no motor vehicle, no PIP. Your medical bills route to health insurance, and your wage loss routes to nobody. The same is true of a collision between two riders.

Third — and here is the part riders underestimate — a collision with a car puts the rider inside the system with full benefits. The moment a motor vehicle causes the injury, the accident arises out of that vehicle’s use, and § 65B.46, subd. 1 confers the right to basic economic loss benefits — a statutory minimum of $40,000 per person, consisting of $20,000 for medical expense loss and $20,000 for income loss and related benefits, Minn. Stat. § 65B.44, subd. 1(a), paid without regard to fault. The rider is treated, functionally, like a pedestrian.

Which insurer actually pays the no-fault benefits?

The priority ladder in Minn. Stat. § 65B.47 answers it. A rider is not an occupant of an involved motor vehicle, so (outside the business-vehicle and employer-vehicle situations in subdivisions 1 and 2) subdivision 4 controls:

(a) The security for payment of basic economic loss benefits applicable to injury to an insured is the security under which the injured person is an insured. … (c) The security … applicable to injury to a person not otherwise covered who is not the driver or other occupant of an involved motor vehicle is the security covering any involved motor vehicle.

Plain English: your own household auto policy pays first. “Insured” under § 65B.43, subd. 5 includes the named insured plus a resident spouse, resident relatives, and minors in the household’s custody — so a college kid on a rental scooter is typically an insured on the parents’ policy if she still resides in the household. Only if there is no policy anywhere in the rider’s household does the claim drop down the ladder to the insurer of the car that hit them. Riders find this counterintuitive in both directions. Yes, your own auto insurer pays your PIP benefits for a crash your car had nothing to do with. And yes, a rider with no car and no household policy still collects — from the striking vehicle’s insurer.

Now the comparison that makes the point of this article. A motorcyclist struck by that same car gets nothing from PIP: § 65B.46, subd. 3 flatly provides that injuries suffered “while on, mounting or alighting from a motorcycle do not arise out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle although a motor vehicle is involved in the accident causing the injury.” That is the famous motorcycle no-fault gap. E-bikes are excluded from the Act’s motorcycle definition by name, and compliant scooters fail its horsepower element — so the gap never reaches them. The legislature’s failure to update the statute for micromobility cut in the riders’ favor.

The driver who hits a scooter rider is often uninsured or gone. Then what?

Then the rider’s uninsured-motorist coverage does the work — and Minnesota gives the non-occupant rider a genuinely favorable rule. Every auto policy in the state must carry uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage of at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, Minn. Stat. § 65B.49, subd. 3a(1)–(2). UM coverage protects insureds “legally entitled to recover damages for bodily injury from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles and hit-and-run motor vehicles”, § 65B.43, subd. 18 — language that matters in scooter cases, where the striking driver leaves the scene more often than anyone would like to believe.

And because the rider was not occupying a motor vehicle or motorcycle at the time, § 65B.49, subd. 3a(5) provides that the injured person “is entitled to select any one limit of liability for any one vehicle afforded by a policy under which the injured person is insured.” A household with two cars carrying different UM limits? The rider selects the higher one. The stacking prohibition in clause (6) still bars adding limits together, but selection of the best single limit belongs to the rider. For the fuller mechanics — including the underinsured side, where the at-fault driver has coverage but not enough — see my guide to uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in Minnesota.

The tort claim against the driver runs alongside all of this, subject to the no-fault system’s threshold requirements for general damages — the province of my article on Minnesota’s no-fault tort thresholds, and the general architecture is laid out in Minnesota no-fault basics.

What about the rental app’s fine print?

Every shared-scooter ride begins with a tap on an agreement nobody reads. Those agreements routinely contain arbitration clauses, class-action waivers, and broad liability releases in favor of the operator. Two points, stated generally. The clauses aim principally at claims against the scooter company — a defective brake, a dead throttle, a fleet-maintenance failure — not at your no-fault benefits or your claim against the motorist who hit you, which no scooter company’s terms can sign away. And Minnesota courts do not enforce exculpatory language uncritically; releases are strictly construed and have real limits, which I cover in liability waivers and exculpatory clauses in Minnesota. If the machine itself failed, do not let the app’s fine print talk you out of having a lawyer read it against Minnesota law.

The defense will put the rider’s own conduct on trial

Expect it. Minnesota compares fault: under Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1, contributory fault does not bar recovery so long as it “was not greater than the fault of the person against whom recovery is sought,” but the damages “must be diminished in proportion” to the claimant’s share. The operating rules I cataloged above become the defense checklist — the scooter on the sidewalk contrary to § 169.225, subd. 2; the 16-year-old without the helmet subdivision 4 requires; the unlit machine at night; the fourteen-year-old on an e-bike § 169.222, subd. 6a(e) says he could not lawfully operate at all. None of those facts ends the claim. Each of them is an argument about percentages, and percentages are money. A $200,000 case at 30 percent rider fault is a $140,000 case. The riding rules are cheap to follow and expensive to break twice — once in the emergency room and once at the settlement table.

What I tell riders after a crash

Report a car-involved crash to your own auto insurer promptly — it is likely the priority PIP carrier even though your car sat in the garage, and no-fault benefits have claim procedures with real deadlines. Preserve the machine and, for rentals, screenshot the app trip data before it disappears. Photograph the label on an e-bike; class and wattage decide which rulebook — and which insurance definitions — the machine lives under. And if the driver fled or turns out to be uninsured, the claim is not over; it has simply moved to your UM coverage, where the limit-selection rule is on your side.

Madgett Law, LLC handles injury claims for Minnesota riders and pedestrians — no-fault benefit disputes, uninsured and underinsured motorist claims, and tort claims against at-fault drivers. If a car put you on the pavement, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message before you talk limits with any adjuster.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 169.011, subds. 4 (bicycle includes electric-assisted bicycle; excludes motorized foot scooters), 15a–15c (class 1–3 electric-assisted bicycles; 20 and 28 mph assist ceilings), 27 (electric-assisted bicycle definition; 750-watt limit; saddle and pedals; classes), 42 (motor vehicle; para. (b) exclusion of electric-assisted bicycles), 45 (motorized bicycle), 45a (multiple mode), 46 (motorized foot scooter; 15 mph; 12-inch wheels; closing-sentence category exclusions); Minn. Stat. § 168.002, subd. 18(d) (motorized foot scooters and electric-assisted bicycles excluded from registration-chapter “motor vehicle”); Minn. Stat. § 169.222, subds. 1, 6a (riding rules; para. (e) under-15 prohibition), 6b (label and anti-modification rules); Minn. Stat. § 169.225, subds. 1–6 (scooter operation: bicycle rights and duties, sidewalk and passenger prohibition, minimum age 12, helmet under 18, lighting, roadway position and left-turn procedure); Minn. Stat. § 65B.43, subds. 2 (motor vehicle: four-wheel and registration elements), 5 (insured: household members), 13 (motorcycle: five-horsepower element; motorized-bicycle inclusion; electric-assisted bicycle exclusion), 16–19 (UM/UIM definitions, including hit-and-run language in subd. 18); Minn. Stat. § 65B.44, subd. 1(a) ($40,000 minimum basic economic loss benefits: $20,000 medical, $20,000 income loss and related); Minn. Stat. § 65B.46, subds. 1 (right to basic economic loss benefits) and 3 (motorcycle exclusion) (enacted 1974 Minn. Laws ch. 408, per the section history lines); Minn. Stat. § 65B.47, subd. 4(a), (c) (priority: own policy, then any involved vehicle’s insurer), subd. 5 (contribution); Minn. Stat. § 65B.49, subd. 3a(1), (2), (5), (6) (mandatory UM/UIM at $25,000/$50,000; non-occupant limit selection; anti-stacking); Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1 (comparative fault). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship with Madgett Law, LLC, and no outcome is promised or implied.