Rider Safety Requirements
Before unlocking a Ride Goat scooter, every rider agrees to a short set of requirements. These are not suggestions. They are the rules that keep the fleet safe and keep our partner properties insurable.
- Helmet recommended on every ride. While helmets are not legally required for adult e-scooter riders in most jurisdictions where we operate, we strongly recommend one on every trip and we work with partners to make helmets available on-site.
- Minimum age 16. Riders must be at least 16 years old to unlock a scooter through the Goat app. Minors under 18 also require a parent or guardian to acknowledge the rider agreement.
- No riding under the influence. Riding while impaired by alcohol, cannabis, or any other intoxicant is prohibited. Doing so violates our terms of service, our partner property rules, and the law in every state we operate in.
- Single rider only. Our scooters are engineered, weighted, and insured for one person. Tandem riding is not permitted and is the single most common cause of preventable injuries on shared scooters.
- Obey local traffic laws and property rules. Stop signs, crosswalks, posted speed limits, and the partner property's own ride zones all apply.
Built-In Scooter Safety Features
Hardware matters. Every Goat-branded scooter in our active fleets — and every refurbished Segway Max 2.3 we sell through our pre-owned program — ships with the safety systems we believe a fleet scooter must have:
- Dual brake system. A regenerative electronic brake on the front wheel and a mechanical disc or drum brake on the rear, so a rider always has a redundant way to stop.
- GPS speed limiting in geofenced zones. The scooter knows where it is. When a rider enters a slow zone — a courtyard, a pedestrian plaza, a building entrance — the motor automatically caps speed at a level the partner has set, often 6–10 mph.
- Automatic shutoff in restricted areas. Designated no-ride areas (loading docks, kitchens, retail interiors, anywhere a partner says) trigger a controlled, gradual deceleration to a stop. The scooter cannot be unlocked or ridden inside those zones.
- Dual kickstand stability. Wide-footprint kickstands prevent the scooter from tipping over in wind or against an uneven curb — a small detail that prevents a large category of "sidewalk clutter" complaints.
- LED headlights, taillights, and brake lights. Always-on visibility hardware so riders are seen by drivers and pedestrians at dawn, dusk, and after dark.
How Ride Goat Supports Safety
Safety is an operational program, not a tagline. Every property we serve gets the same baseline:
- In-app safety tutorial. First-time riders cannot complete their first unlock without scrolling through an interactive tutorial covering brakes, throttle, helmet recommendation, and where they can and cannot ride on this property.
- Geofencing tool for partners. Property managers get a self-serve console to draw, edit, and publish ride zones, slow zones, no-ride zones, and parking areas. Changes push to the fleet in minutes.
- Regular fleet inspections. Our local ops team performs a documented mechanical inspection on every scooter on a published schedule — brakes, tires, lights, throttle response, structural integrity. Any unit that fails is pulled.
- Helmet supply program. Partners can opt into our helmet kit, which provides a starter set of multi-size helmets, a sanitization protocol, and a wall-mounted return station near rider hot spots.
- Onboard maintenance telemetry. Every scooter reports battery health, motor faults, brake wear, and crash detection back to our ops dashboard. Issues are triaged the same day.
Accident Reporting Protocol
If an incident happens, the response is fast and consistent across every property we serve:
- Get safe. The rider should move out of traffic, get medical help, and call 911 if there are injuries. That is always the first step.
- Report in the app. The Goat app has a one-tap "Report an Incident" flow that captures GPS location, time, scooter ID, and rider notes. It also pings our ops team in real time.
- Email us. For incidents involving a partner property, the property manager or rider can email hello@ridegoat.com and our incident team responds within one business hour.
- We investigate. The scooter's onboard log, ride history, and any property camera footage available are reviewed. The unit is pulled from service until the review is complete.
- We follow up. Riders, partners, and (when appropriate) insurers receive a written summary of what happened and what we changed to prevent it from happening again.
Insurance Coverage
Ride Goat carries commercial general liability and product liability insurance specifically written for shared micromobility operations. Our policies extend coverage to the partner properties we operate on, naming them as additional insureds where appropriate. We provide a current certificate of insurance to every property partner before launch and on renewal.
That coverage exists because micromobility is, in the end, a physical activity on a moving vehicle. We design the program to minimize incidents, and we insure the program to handle the ones that still happen. Both halves matter.
Questions about safety on a property you manage? Email hello@ridegoat.com and we'll get you to the right person same-day.
