Auckland man Liam Thompson (27) suffered a broken jaw after his Lime scooter locked up mid-ride, throwing him over the handlebars. Lime says only 0.0095% of riders were affected by the bug, now fixed.
Auckland man Liam Thompson (27) suffered a broken jaw after his Lime scooter locked up mid-ride, throwing him over the handlebars. Lime says only 0.0095% of riders were affected by the bug, now fixed.
The cost of e-scooter claims to ACC has reached $1.46 million since Lime launched in NZ.
The total is split between 1964 claims between October 14 last year and April 28 this year.
Most of those are soft tissue injuries (950) or lacerations (567), but 310 have been for fracturesor dislocations, 43 for dental injuries and 37 have fallen under the "concussion/brain injury" category. The balance fall under "other."
The totals include claims for personal e-scooters.
The accident insurer last updated the Herald for the period October 14, 2018 to March 7, 2019, when 742 claims totalling $739,184 had been lodged.
The number of e-scooter claims peaked in late January and early February (see table below) - the period when Lime scooters were hit by a braking bug that sent some riders flying over the handlebars and saw Limes temporarily pulled from Auckland and Dunedin streets as their councils sort reassurances that the braking issue had been resolved.
Some 155 incidents related to the braking issue were reported to Auckland Council, with 30 causing injury - including a broken jaw for Liam Thompson.
Speaking recently to the Herald, Lime's global head of operations and strategy, Wayne Ting said, "We didn't meet the bar that we would set for ourselves on safety."
But Ting added that the incident had sparked a top-to-bottom review of Lime's operation.
He detailed a series of new safety measures, including once-a-week checks of every scooter in Lime's NZ fleet, regardless of whether any issues have been registered.
The company has also established a dedicated safety team and is giving away 250,000 helmets
More broadly, Ting stressed that the braking issue had only affected 0.0095 per cent of riders as Aucklanders alone clocked more than one million rides.
Ting said any accident stats had to be seen in context.
"One of the unfortunate challenges is that any sort of transportation hardware has inherent risks," Ting said.
However, scooters had fewer accidents than other forms of transportations. While there would always be accidents, more scooters on NZ streets would mean fewer crashes overall.
Source / ACC.
Lime has supported a call from Auckland Councillor and planning committee chairman Chris Darby for a per-ride levy, with funds going to improve cycleways and other infrastructure for getting scooters off footpaths (currently, it is technically illegal to ride an e-scooter in a cycleway, but Transport Minister Phil Twyford has indicated he will support a law change).
Lime chief executive Toby Sun also told the Herald he is open to a portion of the levy going toward ACC.
Source / ACC.
Lime's Auckland trial was recently extended by seven months until October 31.
Horse-trading over permanent licence conditions is not expected to wrap up until closer to that date.
