Lime scooters have been suspended temporarily due to safety issues.
It apparently took Auckland Council's decision to pull its scooters from Auckland streets to prompt Lime into action.
The e-scooter company has finally been in contact with wheel lockup victim Robert King (30).
King was speeding down Grafton Gully on February 18 when the wheels of his Lime locked up and he went into a drift.
He and passersby were thankfully uninjured, but aware the same problem had befallen another Auckland man, Liam Thompson (27), who suffered a broken jaw during a similar incident, King reported the incident to Lime.
He heard nothing back - a familiar experience for those who have spilled off a scooter then tried to contact the San Francisco-based company. Investment analyst James Pope 26), who was thrown over the handlebars of his Lime scooter on Queen St on February 13, tried twice to make contact, but neither approach generated a reply.
And the Herald received a fresh report from Carolyn Alsop today, who said, "My son was in New Zealand from Australia in early February when he suffered a brake lockup on his Lime scooter resulting in being thrown over the handlebars onto a busy Auckland road and fracturing his knee. This has affected his work tremendously."
Like others, who son had heard nothing from the scooter operator.
"Lime reached out on Saturday and asked about the ride and apologised," King says.
The woman who made contact" asked for what happened so could provide feedback to the team. She did ask if it made a beeping sound or not at the time," King says.
Lime's anti-theft defences include a scooter's wheels locking up and a beeping sound. King says he did not hear a beeping sound.
King recalled everything seemed okay as he sped down Grafton Gully shortly before his crash. He recalls the speedo hitting 29.5km just before the skid. "But I was continuing to accelerate," he says. He estimates he was doing about 40km at the time of the skid.
Late on Friday, Auckland Council temporarily suspended Lime's trial licence, giving it 24 hours to disable its scooters.
Council COO Dean Kimpton said Lime had advised it had identified "155 reported irregular braking incidents that may have been caused by the unexpected locking issue. 92 of these were in Auckland. Of these, 30 resulted in injury, of which 19 were in Auckland".
Riders still buzzing around the waterfront, oblivious to the impending Silence of the Limes pic.twitter.com/5EYZ6FsTjq
In a statement, Lime Asia-Pacific boss Anthony Fleo called the council's decision "unfortunate."
"After immediately decommissioning every scooter in New Zealand that was affected, we began an extensive investigation, working with an independent consulting firm to help determine the cause of the problem," Fleo said.
The Lime exec said a firmware upgrade seemed to have fixed the problem. He said the 155 incidents represented just 0.0086% of 1.8 million Lime scooter trips in New Zealand.
The council will reassess the situation on Monday.
Meanwhile, Lime has begun a PR campaign, emailing its users and contacting them through its app, asking them to "share your support" for scooters with Mayor Phil Goff and councillors for bringing back the "transport revolution".
ACC has received at least 1263 claims for e-scooter related injuries since Lime launched in NZ in mid-October, paying out more than $566,405.
Lime says it is open to a per-ride levy, with funds going toward toward cycleways and, potentiall, ACC.
