E-scooters campaign draws 4000 emails
More than 4000 Lime e-scooter riders have emailed Auckland’s mayor and councillors following the company’s call for support after the scooters were withdrawn.
Users opening up the Lime app on Saturday were greeted with a message stating: ‘‘Keep Lime in Auckland. We need your support.’’ By yesterday, the pop-up simply read: ‘‘We need your support’’. Those who then clicked into the option were urged to ‘‘take a moment to share your support for Lime with Auckland’s mayor and councillors’’.
By 8am yesterday, 4182 emails had been sent.
The e-scooters were withdrawn from the streets of Auckland and Dunedin on Friday after reports of wheels locking up, throwing riders off and causing injury. Auckland Council’s chief operating officer, Dean Kimpton, confirmed Auckland Council and Auckland Transport had decided to ‘‘temporarily suspend’’ the e-scooter trial in the region due to safety concerns.
The message on the app said that in less than four months, Aucklanders had made nearly a million trips on Lime e-scooters.
The support email states nearly 209,343 Aucklanders have ‘‘hopped on’’ the scooters, and many of the trips would have replaced a trip in a car.
On Saturday evening, mayor Phil Goff said Auckland Council wanted the e-scooters back on the road. ‘‘The decision to take Lime scooters off the road for 48 hours was made by officials because of concerns over their safety,’’ Goff tweeted. ‘‘Safety has to be the [number one] priority.’’
Not everyone was impressed with the campaign.
On Saturday, Albert-EdenRoskill ward councillor Cathy Casey said the emails in support of Lime had led to council members being ‘‘bombarded’’.
‘‘It’s silly, I’m getting about three to four emails [a minute] that are all saying the exact same thing but with a different name signed on it; my phone is just constantly pinging.’’
Casey said she wasn’t able to