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."
Lime disease! ...
Yeah!
Mostly random stuff.
And let's be honest here, there's probably not a lot of Limer Scooter riders named Lucky.
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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
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I can't wait until this technology is in cars!
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Ah, I see you are familiar with my previous posts! Clearly a sign of good taste, sir!
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the machine rebellion has begun!
Maybe I'm to old to understand the attraction to these things.
Imagine, if you can, that there is a place you need to physically be. Let's say it's a place you could physically walk to, but maybe doing so would take longer than you'd like, plus if you're not in good physical condition -- which I'd expect a old person would be able to sympathize with! -- it may be physically taxing or difficult to walk that long. Even for a young, fit person, if the weather isn't very nice, you might arrive either all hot and sweaty or half-frozen.
Now, imagine that I've got a vehicle you can ride that will get you there in a third of the time and with minimal physical effort, and it'll only cost you about a dollar. To top it off, you don't have to worry about maintenance or security. Do you see the attraction now?
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Here is what users of Lime Scooters have to say about this problem.
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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?
Do not write critical real-time software if you do not have what it takes to make it work right. This cannot be done on the cheap successfully. But I guess you are learning that now.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No. And you forgot to state in your hypothetical that the vehicle in question is dangerous even without the software problems and requires you to be perfectly healthy and agile to get an approximation of a safe ride.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
riding downhill at top speed while hitting a pothole or other obstacle -- excessive brake force on the front wheel can occur
Just when we thought humanity might be avoiding evolutionary correction, along come scooters to redress the problem!
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True, but let us not forget the Nirvana fallacy.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Posting a software fix for this "very rare" occurrence - that has happened in at least 155 reported instances in New Zealand alone, according to TFS - isn't going to do Lime any good, at this point. It's going to face product liability suits, personal injury suits, and class-action suits (despite the laughable prohibition against filing or participating in class action suits in Section 5.8 of its User Agreement, and other language restricting its users available forum for remedies to binding arbitration, and - rather hilariously, IMnsHO - attempting to limit Lime's maximum financial liability for any injury a user might suffer to a princely $100) that are unquestionably going to be financially ruinous for the company.
Fatally so, because it's a venture-capital-funded startup, and the lawyers for Uber, Google Ventures, and other firms that have financed it to the tune of more than $300 million thus far are undoubtedly going to advise their respective management teams that it's now time to cut their losses, write off their investment in Lime, and apply the losses to offset taxes on companies they've funded in the past that are now producing actual profits, rather than liabilities.
The thing that gets me is how the idiots running Lime's software development team decided that rolling out untested code to their deployed fleet of vehicles could in any way have been considered a good idea. I mean, it's one thing for Mark Zuckerberg to flog his coders to "move fast and break things." Bugs in Facebook's code have no potential to physically injure or kill its users. Motor vehicles operated by biological humans on non-virtual streets, in real-world traffic conditions. are a completely different matter. They entail a whole different order of risks: both to their riders' lives, physical health, and safety, and to the company's own existence, should it be found legally liable for any injuries suffered by the former due to its employees' negligence.
And it almost certainly will be held liable. All a plaintiff's lawyers have to establish is that the code that caused the brake lock-ups had not been sufficiently-well tested (if, indeed, it was tested at all) before it was rolled out to the fleet of scooters that Lime's customers paid it to rent, and it's "Game over! Thank you for playing," because I can't see any court in any country ruling that the company's attempt to duck liability for its negligence via the ham-handed provisions of its User Agreement as enforceable, or in any way reasonable or fair.
Disclaimer: IANAL. If Lime's broken-ass software has caused you to sustain an injury of any kind, I strongly advise you to consult an actual, admitted-to-practice-before-the-bar-type barrister about it - preferably one who has a long record of winning product liability cases against companies with a history of employing predatory user agreements to try to prevent their customers from holding them responsible for their negligence ...
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No. And you forgot to state in your hypothetical that the vehicle in question is dangerous even without the software problems and requires you to be perfectly healthy and agile to get an approximation of a safe ride.
I'm 50 years old and 70 pounds overweight. I find e-scooters to be convenient, fun, cheap and adequately safe urban transportation when I'm traveling. Quicker and less tiring than walking, more convenient, cheaper and more fun than taxi/Uber or renting a car.
I wouldn't use a scooter in bad weather, though. If it's too hot, too cold or too wet, I'll get enclosed transportation. Though I do agree that a scooter widens my tolerance for heat and cold a bit, especially heat.
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Now, imagine that I've got a vehicle you can ride that will get you there in a third of the time and with minimal physical effort, and it'll only cost you about a dollar. To top it off, you don't have to worry about maintenance or security. Do you see the attraction now?
I can see the attraction for a jobless millennial living in his parents' basement who can't afford a car because he has crushing student debt payments from his Gender Social Studies degree. But for actual adults with adult jobs who own cars and/or motorcycles, no. There is no attraction.
Anyone that's ever endo'd on a bike, skateboard, etc. can tell you how unpleasant and really dangerous sudden deceleration is. On a device that leaves you exposed, it's your worst nightmare.
But, hey, when it does (rarely) happen, it's when you're going downhill, at high speed! And, that's when an endo is most dangerous.
"[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."
Something is also up with the photo that Qz used to illustrate this. WTF have they done with this, the rider is obviously moving at low speed (look at her hair), and then the background is smeared to imitate motion blur, but look at the railing, theres' breaks in it and features that appear and disappear across different regions of blurring. What a mess!
My guess is they grabbed sections of the image and stretched them to fake motion blur.
old folk probably can't balance on the things (AFAIK no gyroscope) and would either drive or call a cab.
It's a buck to rent plus 15 cents per minute. They can go for about 50 minutes on a charge at around 12 mph (15mph is the max, but that's gonna rise and fall depending on terrain). You could pretty easily spend $8 bucks getting somewhere on one. For a few dollars more I could call a lyft. Maybe even for the same price.
I think they're just a novelty at this point.
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Dearest Coward, you can get keys sent to you in the mail, you can even use your key with an app to unlock the scooter.
OK Grandpa. Why not start your own old-fashioned scooter rental business instead of playing armchair entrepreneur?
Y'all even know what a key is these days? many are just electronic devices you plug in or even wear. I can design a key that will record the speed, the location, calculate the cost and take payments. But it is on the key end, not something that might kill you like this system has come close to
Thats the awesome thing about you cowards - standing up for something that is obviously, provably, and in practice, dangerous.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
A case of braking bad, or moving fast and braking things