A Software Malfunction Is Throwing Riders Off of Lime Scooters (qz.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Riders in Switzerland and New Zealand have reported the front wheels of their electric scooters locking suddenly mid-ride, hurling riders to the ground. The malfunction has resulted in dozens of injuries ranging from bruises to broken jaws. Lime pulled all its scooters from Swiss streets in January when reports of the incidents surfaced there. When the city of Auckland, New Zealand voted to suspend the company earlier this week following 155 reported cases of sudden braking, the company acknowledged that a software glitch was causing the chaos. The company claims that fewer than 0.0045% of all rides worldwide have been affected, adding that "any injury is one too many." An initial fix reduced the number of incidents, it said, and a final update underway on all scooters will soon be complete. "Recently we detected a bug in the firmware of our scooter fleet that under rare circumstances could cause sudden excessive braking during use," Lime wrote in a blog post Saturday. "[I]n very rare cases -- usually riding downhill at top speed while hitting a pothole or other obstacle -- excessive brake force on the front wheel can occur, resulting in a scooter stopping unexpectedly."

Comments

what a stupid design

[FudRucker]

who was stupid enough to decide to put the brake controls though computer/software??? the brakes should be the old fashioned hand/lever brakes with a cable going down to the wheels then you dont have to worry about the software for it, by running the brakes though a computer/software is just making a scooter more complicated than it needs to be, the best philosophy is to Keep it Simple

Re:what a stupid design

[FudRucker]

now Lims is paying for that decision, they should have just prevented the motor from turning until it was rented

Re:what a stupid design

[OzPeter]

Sounds like an attack vector for the Internet of Scooters as well.

These scooters seem to have a lot of enemies

It comes from being a "disruptor". Which is hipster speak for

I'm going to do what I want and I don't care what you think or how it affects you because you are not our target demographic, (even if doing so breaks laws)

Re:It's not a bug,

[nnet]

Except the scooter doesn't protect you from the elements, so

if the weather isn't very nice

why would you use one of these things?
Paying a dollar to freeze your ass off, or get soaked in the rain is not at all an attraction, at least to me, how is it one for you?