Lime under pressure as angry victims of braking glitch talk of prosecution.
Victims of e-scooter accidents talk of the Crimes Act amid calls for the company to be investigated over braking injuries. Rob Stock reports.
Lime e-scooter rider Ashley Jones says the company should be investigated to determine if it posed a criminal threat to public safety.
The Auckland Council temporarily suspended Lime’s licence on February 22 following a string of 155 incidents of unexpected braking that appeared to go back as far as October. Nineteen people were injured when the wheels of the Lime electric scooters they were riding unexpectedly locked.
Lime, which launched in October, blamed a ‘‘firmware’’, or software, glitch, but some of those injured want an investigation into whether Lime breached any public safety laws, including the criminal nuisance law under the Crimes Act.
Jones is clear about what Lime should have done after he broke his shoulder on January 18. He was thrown from a Lime scooter on Auckland’s Nelson St when its wheels locked.
‘‘They should have recalled the whole fleet straight away, and they should have investigated them and whether there was a fault with them.’’
Jones said that as long as there was still a likelihood of Lime scooters unexpectedly braking on users, the company should not have allowed its scooters to remain on the streets. He had told Lime of the incident immediately.
Lime’s director of government affairs, Mitchell Price, said safety was the company’s top priority.
‘‘There was, for Auckland, a very small number which resulted in an injury,’’ he said. ‘‘Where someone was injured, those scooters were taken off the street.’’
But Price said Lime did not recognise there was a fleet-wide problem until the week the Auckland Council suspended its licence.
The Auckland Council would not immediately reveal the exact dates of the first and last of the 155 unexpected braking incidents, and is considering whether it is able to keep that information secret under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.
But council spokeswoman Joanna Glasswell said the first incident was in October and the most recent one was before the suspension in February.
‘‘The brake was engaging at the time when scooters were going downhill, or hitting a pothole, or crack in the surface, which confused the firmware that it was time to brake,’’ Price said.
The problem was fixed, and Lime scooters returned to Auckland streets.
Lime collects feedback from users, but Price said the first the company knew of the accidents caused by wheel-locking was through the media.
He said many Lime users did not provide feedback on accidents.
Companies can be found to have broken the law if their products and services knowingly pose a threat to public safety. The law sometimes applied is criminal nuisance under the Crimes Act. The penalty can be up to one year in prison.
The Consumer Guarantees Act requires people hiring goods to the public to provide products that are of ‘‘acceptable quality’’ and safe.
Professor Warren Brookbanks from AUT University said criminal nuisance was not often prosecuted.
It has previously been used to prosecute offences such as unfenced pools, spreading sexually transmitted disease and pointing a laser at aircraft.
Police did not investigate Lime’s actions during the five months of unexpected braking.
A police spokeswoman said criminal nuisance was one of a number of options to consider in such instances. ‘‘We are not aware of any need to invoke those provisions of the Crimes Act to date.’’
WorkSafe New Zealand said the matter was not its jurisdiction, and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) said it was not responsible as Limes were not used on state highways.
NZTA suggested the Auckland Council as the roading authority under the Land Transport Act.
The council said its involvement with e-scooters was to issue mobile trading licences.
‘‘We are confident that [the] council is complying with all of its legal obligations in that respect.’’
The Ministry of Building, Innovation and Employment said it did not take prosecutions under the Crimes Act, and the Auckland Council had taken the lead in the safety of Lime.
Wellington businessman Chris Parkin said he was not surprised no agency was interested.
In 2004 he took a private prosecution for criminal nuisance against the Tararua District Council after a motorbike crash.
Parkin’s bike skidded when he hit loose gravel on a recently sealed patch of road. There was no warning sign.
Parkin, then a Wellington City councillor, was left with bruising and a stiff shoulder, and a burning sense of annoyance.
He took the case because authorities were not interested. ‘‘In effect, criminal nuisance drops off the radar because nobody is interested enough, and individuals don’t have the resources to take private prosecutions.’’
‘‘They should have recalled the whole fleet straight away, and they should have investigated them, and whether there was a fault with them.’’
Ashley Jones, right, who broke his shoulder when a Lime scooter wheels locked