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The lawsuit in Los Angeles accuses Bird Rides and Lime and their manufacturers, Xiaomi and Segway, of gross negligence, claiming that the companies knew the scooters were dangerous and deployed them in a way that could cause injury.
A lawsuit involving electric scooter sharing companies, which captures the dangers of two-wheel drive city navigation, brings bloody details to one of the most polarizing technology trends of the past year.
Nine people injured by electric scooters filed a class action lawsuit on October 19 in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. He accuses Bird Rides and Lime start-ups and their manufacturers, Xiaomi and Segway, of gross negligence, claiming that the companies knew that the scooters were dangerous and deployed them in a way that could cause injury.
Since the e-scooters invaded the United States in September with the arrival of Bird, hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians have landed at the hospital with injuries ranging from serious rashes of gravel to teeth broken, through torn nails and loose biceps, according to doctors and victims.
Three people died last month while driving scooters in Dallas, Cleveland and Washington, D.C.
There is no official count of the number of scooter-related injuries in the country since hospitals code their patients according to the type of injury they were admitted to, rather than the cause. But a metric measure that Bird and Lime follows closely is the number of trips made by their scooters – more than 20 million people combined and increasing every day.
Electric scooters have appeared in more than 100 cities around the world. The startups aim to usher in a new era of environmentally friendly micro-transport. After a remarkable one – year climb, Bird and Lime are now two of the youngest startups to achieve unicorn status in Silicon Valley, with respective valuations of $ 2 billion and $ 3 billion or more.
The rapid rise of the scooter revolution has been marked by controversy, complaints and concussions. Citing fears for public safety, officials in some cities, including San Francisco and Santa Monica, have temporarily banned electric scooters and filed criminal complaints against companies supporting them for operating without a license. Some frustrated vigilante residents threw scooters into the ocean, buried them in the sand and even set them on fire.
According to the lawsuit, two of the plaintiffs were injured while stumbling on abandoned scooters on the sidewalk, four were struck from behind while they were walking, including a 7-year-old boy who was severely injured at eight before had to sew the lip. "These companies are putting profit on safety," said Catherine Lerer, McGee Lerer's lawyer, who represents the plaintiffs, in an interview for Bloomberg's Decrypted podcast.
Since filing the complaint, Mr. Lerer said that an additional 75 people, injured as a result of a scooter, had contacted her, including a 67-year-old man with a brain injury .
Bird and Lime say that safety is a top priority. But from their point of view, cars are the real danger of transport.
"Class action lawyers with a real interest in improving transportation safety should focus on reducing the 40,000 deaths caused by cars each year in the United States," a spokesman said. Bird in a written statement.
Lime said he could not comment on the ongoing litigation, but in an interview on Bloomberg's Decrypted podcast, Taylor Bennett, director of public affairs, said Lime had improved his scooters with new security features three times during the last year. The latest version features larger tires to combat potholes, brakes on the rear wheel to prevent riders from skidding on the handlebars and a double suspension. The company also distributes 250,000 helmets to its riders.
Wally Ghurabi, medical director of one of UCLA's emergency departments in Santa Monica, said plastic surgeons spent hours cleaning bitumen wounds to prevent gritty tattoos.
"You can break your face, nose, facial bones, skull and bleed inside your skull," said Ghurabi, pointing out some of the risks associated with electric scooters.
In June, Victor San Andres was thrown on the handlebars of his electric scooter when the front brakes went badly downhill. He remembers "flying in the air" but said that his spirit had happily disappeared by the time his face had collided with the sidewalk. He was knocked out and suffered serious facial lacerations, a broken finger and a ripped fingernail.
San Andrés, an online video producer, was injured in New York, where scooter sharing companies are not allowed to operate, but some people have personal electric scooters. The scooter was offered free to San Andres in exchange for putting on line promotional videos of scooters. He is not a party to the class action.
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