News Lime scoots around reaction to safety issues
Lime continues to evade questions about why it waited for a council ban to remove its e-scooters from Auckland streets when one month earlier its fleet was withdrawn from two cities in Switzerland for the same glitch.
On January 14, a design flaw prompted Lime to pull e-scooters from Basel and Zurich after several riders were left with serious injuries following sudden, unexpected braking.
More than a month later, on February 22, the same irregular braking was the reason behind Auckland Council suspending Lime’s licence.
When asked why the multibillion-dollar company did not analyse its New Zealand fleet after realising the safety concerns in Basel and Zurich, Lime New Zealand public affairs manager Lauren Mentjox said the company was ‘‘diligent in the detection, diagnosis and resolution of any issue or problem that occurs in any one of our scooters’’.
But there were 155 irregular braking incidents reported across the country – 92 of which were in Auckland, resulting in 19 separate injury claims – and Lime only pulled the scooters on Auckland Council orders.
According to Swiss media reports, the company removed its fleet after three alleged incidents in which users were left nursing a broken elbow, dislocated shoulder and abrasions when the scooters halted mid-ride, leading to crashes.
In January, technology website TechCrunch obtained an email Lime reportedly sent to users in Switzerland, in which it said it was looking into whether ‘‘a software update could be causing a reboot during the ride, triggering the theft protection’’, before removing them from the Swiss cities altogether.
Meanwhile, users in New Zealand continued to report similar problems. In November, Auckland’s Chris St Bruno was on his first Lime trip when the wheels locked up, sending him flying through the air and on to the footpath. The barista’s injuries required three days in hospital and 10 weeks off work.
At the time, St Bruno condemned the company for allowing scooters on the streets that were capable of malfunctioning.
Despite Stuff’s repeated attempts to clarify why the California-based company did not pull its e-scooters from New Zealand streets when it knew there were safety issues, Lime continued to offer vague explanations. In a statement, Mentjox said: ‘‘We pulled scooters from circulation in Switzerland and New Zealand to run analyses and testing. Because there are more scooters in New Zealand than Switzerland, pulling scooters for testing in Switzerland effectively paused operations there because of the smaller number of total scooters. This was a firmware issue rather than one that impacted a specific model of scooter.
‘‘In New Zealand, we have ensured the firmware update has been rolled out to every scooter in our fleet and we have manually checked each one as well.’’
Following Auckland Council’s temporary ban, Lime teams in China, San Francisco and Auckland identified the problem and produced a firmware update for all scooters.
That update eliminated the glitch and would reduce the number of incidents, Lime director Mitchell Price said at the time.
On Friday, Auckland Council gave Lime the green light for its e-scooters to return to Auckland streets, however, it has yet to redeploy its fleet while it carries out further quality assurance checks. Mentjox told Stuff: ‘‘The safety of our riders remains our utmost priority and following the council’s decision to allow Lime back on the streets of Auckland, we have taken it upon ourselves to carry out further quality assurance checks.
‘‘Lime has accepted the conditions of Auckland Council and Auckland Transport.’’
On Monday, Lime told its Auckland juicers – contractors paid to recharge e-scooters collected from the streets overnight – they could expect to see them back on the streets this week.