E-scooters off streets over brake lock glitch

Lime e-scooters have been pulled from Auckland streets for now due to a software glitch that causes the wheels to lock up.

Lime, a Californian company, has also assured the Dunedin City Council it would remove its scooters from the city for the same reason.

Auckland Council chief operating officer Dean Kimpton confirmed yesterday that Auckland Council and Auckland Transport had decided to ‘‘temporarily suspend’’ the e-scooter trial due to safety concerns. The suspension would be reviewed on Monday.

Kimpton said there had been 155 ‘‘irregular braking incidents’’ reported across the country, 92 of which were in Auckland and 12 in Dunedin. Thirty people – 19 in Auckland and three in Dunedin – had been injured as a result.

It would be required to meet certain conditions for its trial to be resumed, including delivering a report every 48 hours.

It had also been asked to meet weekly with council staff to discuss any incidents and the company’s responses to those.

The council would appoint an independent reviewer.

Lime had been ‘‘actively working’’ over the past week to carry out maintenance on affected e-scooters, Kimpton said.

Meanwhile, Christchurch City Council members would vote on whether to grant Lime a one-year permit to operate in the city at a meeting next Thursday.

Safety issues would be considered, council head of planning and strategic planning David Griffiths said.

Christchurch councillor Deon Swiggs was not aware of anyone in the city being injured from the wheel-locking glitch.

People enjoyed using the scooters, Swiggs said, and it would be preferable for the council to work with Lime to address any concerns.

‘‘I don’t want our city to have a knee-jerk reaction to this.’’

Lime APAC regional general manager Anthony Fleo said it was recently alerted to a software issue which caused the e-scooter’s locking mechanism to engage mid-ride.

‘‘Less than a fraction of a percent of all Lime trips in New Zealand have been impacted by this issue, specifically 0.0086 per cent,’’ he said.

He said although only a small amount compared with more than 1.8 million rides to date, one incident was one too many.

All affected scooters in New Zealand had been decommissioned and a firmware update was issued..

‘‘We remain confident in the safety of our service. We apologise to our riders . . . for this issue.’’

ACC has paid out $200,000 for e-scooter-related injuries in the past few months. The Government was also looking at imposing a 10kmh speed limit for the e-scooters.