A year of Lime: The sweet — and the sour

Ayear ago today, Lime scooters peeled out on Auckland streets and became the talk of the town. Those early adopters who downloaded the app and jumped aboard were instant conversions to a whole new way of moving. Many of those riders continue to feel the wind in their ears as they silently surf the sidewalks and bicycle lanes for 38 cents a minute — plus a dollar to unlock.

Not so quiet however, have been the annoyed, frightened and injured pedestrians who have been blindsided by powered vehicles invading their sidewalk sanctuaries. Their protestations are not without cause.

Last month, 23-year-old man Toben Hunt died after falling from a Lime scooter at Westhaven in what is understood to be New Zealand’s first death from an electric scooter.

In June, Debra Christensen was left with a bloody head wound after being knocked over by a Lime scooter rider near Auckland’s Victoria Park.

Liam Thompson, 27, broke his jaw after being thrown over the handlebar of his Lime scooter after its brakes locked up, one of 30 injuries linked to braking issues which led to the company’s e-scooters being pulled from Auckland and Dunedin streets for a week.

Those patching up at the end of this rolling revolution, such as orthopaedic surgeon Paul Monk, have said there needs to be more discussion about helmets, speed limits, alcohol, age limits and how many people can ride them at a time.

A recent study, The Cost of Electric-Scooter Related Orthopaedic Surgery, found the popularity of e-scooters was creating a burden on taxpayers and healthcare systems.

Claims for ACC e-scooter injuries have topped $4.3 million. There have been more than 2000 claims between October 2018 and July 2019. Auckland, naturally, had the most claims with 1271, totalling $1,767,480.

A death and thousands of injuries are obviously an unwelcome development. But to put it in perspective, that’s 2000 injuries from a nationwide tally of 4 million rides — 0.05 per cent of rides leading to harm. The rides covered 5.8 million km.

“One of the unfortunate challenges is that any sort of transportation hardware has inherent risks — and we’re going to face other challenges in the future. This is again true with any other form of transportation,” Lime global head of operations and strategy Wayne Ting said.

Mitigating risk should be an important focus but to call for a complete ban — considering the tide of scooters now in more than 100 markets across five continents — would make a perfect parable for a contemporary Canute.

This is the kind of thinking people are calling for. Lime claims New Zealand rides helped reduce more than 6250 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and saved 757,082 litres of petrol.

Change has come, not all of it positive, but there’s no rolling it back. The only realistic approach is to educate riders and take all reasonable safety precautions.

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