Lime squeezes council for chance to keep scooting

E-SCOOTER company Lime is swamping Auckland Council with users’ emails as it lobbies to continue operating in the city after its scooters were pulled over safety concerns.

Users who signed in to the Lime scooter app yesterday were greeted with a pop-up message stating: ‘‘Keep Lime in Auckland. We need your support’’ and a link which allows users to send an email to the council.

The e-scooters were withdrawn from the streets of Auckland and Dunedin after reports of wheels locking up, throwing riders off.

By 5pm yesterday, almost 3000 emails had been sent in support of Lime – and had been forwarded to councillors.

Albert-Eden-Roskill ward councillor Cathy Casey said it was an email bombardment.

‘‘It’s silly, I’m getting about three to four emails [a minute] that are all saying the exact same thing but with a different name signed on it, my phone is just constantly pinging.’’

Casey said she wasn’t able to find any other messages that were coming through due to the rate at which Lime users’ emails were flooding in.

The sudden slew of emails had surprised Casey as she believed the council had generally been ‘‘very supportive’’ of e-scooters.

‘‘It’s just a health and safety thing – they need to fix the risks the scooters pose to get the licence, so I don’t understand why I’m being sent thousands of emails, it’s just annoying.’’

Auckland Council will review the licence suspension tomorrow.