Council employee badly injured on Lime scooter before licence issued

Peter Knight, a member of Auckland Council's street trading licensing team, was badly hurt while riding a Lime scooter last year. Photo / Chris Van Ryn

An Auckland Council employee on the team responsible for giving Lime scooters a licence was hospitalised after he was badly hurt riding an e-scooter last year, the Herald has learned.

The staff member, Peter Knight, fractured bones in his face and hand and required a bone graft after an accident on a Lime in December. He spent three weeks on leave recovering.

Knight's accident happened in mid-December 2018, near the end of a three-month trial of the scooters as the council was deciding whether to extend its license.

"Peter fractured his cheekbone and eye socket; he received a bone graft to repair a fracture in his left hand and received some injuries to his torso," said Craig Hobbs, the council's director of regulatory services, who was leading the trial of Lime scooters.

Nobody else was involved in the crash.

Knight is one of thousands of people who have been injured riding e-scooters since Lime launched in New Zealand on October 14.

Over eight months - between October last year to May this year - ACC received 2432 claims relating to e-scooter injuries, costing $2.8 million in payouts.

Knight, who is responsible for the team that issues mobile trading licences, was on injury-related leave for three weeks. He returned to work in early January, Hobbs said.

He is the manager of alcohol licensing and works primarily as an advisor on the council's Trading in Public Places bylaw, Hobbs said.

"However it is fair to say that his experience has provided some useful insights into e-scooter use and ride sharing in the Auckland region."

A fault, which came to light publicly in February, caused wheels to lock up at high speed, sending people flying over the handlebars.

Lime identified 115 reported irregular braking incidents that may have been caused by the locking issue, with 30 people hurt.

The licence was suspended on February 25 until Lime fixed the problem by upgrading firmware.

At the time of Knight's crash the council was not aware of the wheel-locking issue, Hobbs said.

Knight did not know how the crash happened - only that he had been riding the scooter, then was on the ground, a council spokeswoman said.