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Lime Recalls 2,000 Scooters After Reports of Some Catching Fire (businessinsider.com)
Lime has recalled 2,000 of its electric scooters from the streets of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Lake Tahoe, the company said Wednesday, after the Washington Post contacted it about some catching on fire. From a report: In a statement, Lime said it was investigating the "unconfirmed" reported and had pulled the vulnerable models, manufactured by the Chinese company Segway Ninebot, from circulation. "At no time were riders or members of the public put at risk," Lime said. "Unfortunately, despite our efforts, we've recently received an unconfirmed report that another Segway Ninebot scooter model may also be vulnerable to battery failure, which we are currently investigating." Until the problem is solved, scooters will only be charged in Lime facilities and not available to "juicers," people who are paid by the company charge scooters after-hours. These facilities will be monitored 24/7, the company said, and all scooters in Lime's fleet, regardless of manufacturer, will undergo a "new daily diagnostic training program."
Why?
Do you just like seeing people seriously hurt in general? Or do you just don't like the idea of motorized transportation that isn't a full sized car or motorcycle. Because there was someone who slightly inconvenienced you with some unsafe driving.
Because most people riding these are under-aged, and blast down the sidewalk at top speed. Broken wrists and legs result.
Because they are not safe and the companies are exploiting gaps in laws and enforcement to profit at their customer's expense.
I've been a bike commuter for 20+ years and am well aware of the hazards of the roads and how to bike in a city safely and lawfully. The vast majority of scooter riders are not being safe and are breaking laws on a regular basis.
Some examples (Austin as my reference point):
- Scooter users regularly dart through intersections when lights are red, often executing dangerous left turns. Proper action: act like you're a car and obey the stop lights or get off the scooter and use the cross walk.
- Scooter users try to pass cars on the right when cars are making right turns. Proper action: act like a car and line up behind the car and wait your turn.
- Scooter users weaving in and out of pedestrians on side walks. Proper action: don't do this. All it takes is a pedestrian waving their arm or shifting their path and both the scooter user and pedestrian are injured.
- Lack of helmets. Proper action: Wear a helmet. Sure, they don't stop concussions (common argument used against helmets that's generally true), but they do stop your skull from getting cracked in low speed collusions (much worse than a concussion).
I can go on, but you get the point. Riding these scooters is not like walking or using a push scooter. They operate at speeds most users are not familiar with on infrastructure not designed for their use. There's also an entire population of other infrastructure users that are not conditioned to be aware of them.
Look, I love the idea of these scooters. I love that there's potential to help us all adapt to make it safer for all lower speed methods of transportation (bikes, skateboards, push scooters, running ;) ). But, putting everyone at risk and pretending you're not is an incredibly irresponsible way to go about it.