E-scooter flaw snaps girl’s arms
A new speed limit for e-scooters on Wellington’s waterfront is causing chaos for some riders.
A geo-fenced area along Oriental Pde restricting rideshare e-scooters to a maximum speed of 15kmh was voted in by Wellington City Council last Thursday.
The GPS-based system is meant to automatically restrict speeds as soon as a scooter enters the zone, but some riders have reported wheels locking up, throwing them over the handlebars.
Andrew Carroll is demanding Flamingo investigate after his 14-year-old daughter was thrown from one of its scooters, leaving her in two full-arm casts.
‘‘She was coming back from school Wednesday when her scooter stopped immediately. The wheels locked up and threw her over the handlebars,’’ he said.
‘‘She’s got two broken elbows, but it easily could have been far more serious . . . This was intended as a safety measure but it has had the opposite effect.’’
Carroll has been in contact with Flamingo and received an apology from the company, but wanted to see proof that the issue would be sorted.
‘‘I just want it fixed, this isn’t good enough. If it happened once, I suspect there are other cases of this happening,’’ he said.
A Flamingo spokesperson said the company was ‘‘taking this accident extremely seriously,’’ but denied that the scooter’s wheels had locked up completely.
‘‘When a scooter enters this geo-fence zone, automatic braking occurs to reduce the speed of the scooter to 15kmh. In this instance, the scooter’s auto braking applied and caught the rider off guard, resulting in an accident.
‘‘As soon as we were notified of the accident the scooter was disabled and brought back to our warehouse. The scooter has since been fully inspected by one of our trained mechanics and passed a comprehensive maintenance inspection.
‘‘Flamingo’s low speed zones were set up correctly. There were no incorrect zones or speed restrictions created. In response to the accident, we have now increased the area of the geo-fence on the waterfront to remove gaps, therefore reducing the amount of times a rider would experience a change in speed during their ride.’’
Flamingo said the manufacturer, Segway, was working to implement a smoother automatic braking system.
The accident is similar to a glitch that plagued Lime scooters in 2019, causing them to be temporarily pulled from Auckland and Christchurch streets.
A council spokesperson said they were not aware of any similar accidents happening at geo-fence boundaries and did not intend to pull the e-scooters off the streets.