Injury tally dives after Lime ban
Figures out since e-scooter ban show fall in ACC claims
The ban on Lime scooters appears to have worked — with injuries dropping significantly since the company had its licence suspended in two cities last week.
More than 1300 people have been injured using e-scooters since their introduction to New Zealand in October — totalling $643,337 in Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) claims, latest figures reveal.
A breakdown of the figures, released to the Herald yesterday, shows a dramatic decrease in injuries for the week ending Saturday when compared with previous weeks.
While the figures are not broken down by day, it appears Friday’s ban put a halt to further mishaps — 41 people lodged ACC claims in the week ending Saturday for e-scooter related injuries, compared with 95 and 111 in the first two weeks of February.
The figure hasn’t been as low as 41 since Lime scooters were introduced in October, when 33 injury claims were made for the week beginning Sunday October 14.
The most injury-prone week since Limes hit the streets was that beginning Sunday, February 3, when 111 people lodged claims.
However, a spokesman for ACC said the figures don’t always reflect when the incident occurred, but rather when the claim was lodged.
On Friday, Lime had its licences temporarily revoked by Auckland and then Dunedin councils amid growing safety concerns after several incidents in which the e-scooters’ front wheels unexpectedly locked.
Auckland Council said at the time it had been advised by Lime that it had identified 155 reported irregular braking incidents possibly caused by the unexpected locking issue — 92 of which were in Auckland. Thirty resulted in injury.
This appears to be borne out in the figures, which show Auckland users accounted for more than half (716) of the ACC claims, followed by Christchurch
with 383 claims.
The majority of claims (1210) related to loss of balance/personal control, followed by collisions or being knocked over (30).
Soft-tissue injuries were the most common, with 657 claims, followed by cuts at 428, and fractures or dislocations with 218 claims.
In comparison, 1768 bicycle injury claims were recorded in the first two weeks of February, and 148 motorcycle injuries, totalling almost
$46,000 and counting.
More than $8 million in ACC claims has been paid out in bicycle injuries, and $2.2m for motorbike injuries, since mid-October.
Dunedin Hospital reports a dip in people arriving to the emergency department with e-scooter related injuries. However, this seemed to follow a natural decline.
Dr John Chambers, the hospital’s Emergency Department clinical leader, said staff had treated several
e-scooter patients with “painful and serious injuries” in the past weeks.
“We have not collated actual numbers, but anecdotally, initially we saw around five to seven presentations per day directly attributable to Lime scooters,” he said.
“This number had reduced in recent weeks to more like one and two per day, prior to the removal of the scooters over the weekend.”
He urged riders to “be sensible, stay safe and wear a helmet” should the e-scooters be allowed back.
Auckland and Counties Manukau DHB said they did not specifically record data on Lime scooter injuries.
More than 185,000 riders have taken nearly one million trips on Lime scooters in Auckland alone since October. The US-based company estimated it had prevented more than 300,000 vehicle trips.
Auckland Council chief operating officer Dean Kimpton said the council and Auckland Transport had received information from Lime, which was being reviewed.
“Lime’s independent reviewer, Exponent, has indicated its review is continuing and that it will provide further information to that already delivered, by the end of the day on Wednesday. The licence suspension will continue until we have this information and have completed our review,” Kimpton said.
Lime has said fixes have already been installed on all its NZ-based e-scooters to rectify the braking issue.
Walkers of the world unite and rid our footpaths of the dreaded e-scooters for ever. Lime, the recently suspended e-scooter operator in Auckland and Dunedin, was busy over the weekend, urging its clients to lobby Auckland councillors to reverse the decision.
It’s time for walkers to fight back and remind councillors why footpaths are so named. They’re for foot traffic, created, presumably, around the time the wheel was invented, to stop pedestrians from being run over.
And with local body elections coming up, what better time to remind Mayor Phil Goff and his councillors that’s it’s we oldie pedestrians who actually still vote, not the e-scooter generation, many of whom appear too young to even be on the electoral roll.
What a crazy exercise in bad governance this has all been. Last winter, bureaucrats in Auckland and Wellington, terrified of being seen as untrendy, were hustled by a group of scooter-hiring Californian wide boys.
Hard as it might be to believe, they agreed to rewrite traffic regulations so that an e-scooter was no longer to be regarded as a motor vehicle and could forthwith be allowed to roam our city pavements. It was a revolutionary change, done in secret with none of the usual consultation with traffic experts or the public.
With the law changed, assorted councils around the country let the Californians loose on our footpaths, hiring out their cheap Chinese-made “non-vehicles”. They duly raked in the cash while the rest of us were told to join the 21st century, embrace change and stop moaning.
Since their introduction in midOctober, ACC has received at least 1300 claims for e-scooter related injuries, and paid out more than $643,337 in compensation. This includes 218 fractures/dislocations.
Despite the rapidly growing casualty list, our oh so trendy politicians and bureaucrats have been unable to concede they’ve cocked up. As the scooters were being unleashed on Auckland streets last October, Mayor Goff did worry they were “predominantly unregulated”, and said “I don’t want to have to react in the event if there is a serious injury.” So he didn’t!
Even in recent weeks, as the electronics in the scooter braking system started to go haywire, randomly locking front wheels and sending riders flying over the handle bars, to break jaws and knees, the delay in responding by both Lime and the councils has been a disgrace.
By the end of last week when Auckland Council finally barred them from city streets, Lime admitted to receiving reports of 155 irregular braking incidents, nationwide, 30 of them resulting in injury.
As the Automobile Association’s Mike Noon says, “customers deserve better.” He added, “Imagine if you . . . were hiring a rental car that the brakes failed on?”
Personally, I’ve got to the selfish stage where I’m thinking if customers are stupid enough to jump aboard dodgy scooters without a helmet, then more fools them.
My priority is my survival as a pedestrian. Now it emerges that the 27km/h top speed is not the maximum after all. Robert King told the Herald he was speeding down Grafton Gully on February 18 with the speedo stuck on 29.5km/h and accelerating when his brakes locked.
He flew off the scooter at, he estimates, 40km/h. Miraculously he survived. He reported it to Lime but heard nothing back until a week later after they were banned, and they started grovelling for support from him and other users.
Back when the scooters first came on the scene, I said I didn’t want to share my footpath with anything that could hit me from behind at 27km/ h. That they are capable of speeds approaching double that, makes that right even harder to fathom.
Lime co-founder and chief executive Toby Sun seems to agree. In Auckland last month he said “We need to get Limes off the pavement.” He proposed an increase in dedicated cycle/scooter lane infrastructure.
As long as they don’t return to the footpaths, I’m not fussed where they go. But sharing space with bikes does sound like a more even contest.