Safety •

Industry alliance publishes first-of-its-kind incident data showing safety of shared e‑scooters

This week Lime was proud to join Micro-Mobility for Europe (MMfE), the EU association of shared micro-mobility providers, in sharing a first-of-its-kind factsheet on incident data involving shared e-scooters in Europe in 2021. The MMfE factsheet strengthens conclusions from Lime’s October 2022 Safety Report for Scooter in Paris which found that over 99.99% of Lime electric scooter trips had no safety incidents.

Lime, in collaboration with the other MMfE founding members (Bird, Bolt, Dott, Tier and Voi), has shared aggregated safety incident data based on over 240 million shared e-scooter trips in order to inform road safety policies that reduce incident risk for vulnerable road users, such as scooter riders, cyclists and pedestrians. Working together, micromobility operators and cities can continue to build the streetscapes we need for a sustainable, carbon-free transportation future.

The industry is proud of the work we do to constantly be improving when it comes to safety, and this new report shows it’s working. The collected incident data demonstrate that the overall risk of safety incidents requiring medical treatment is 60% lower than comparable data from 2019. And, in 2021, 5.1 injuries per million kilometers traveled on shared e-scooters were registered. MMfE’s analysis also shows that fatality rates on shared e-scooters are similar to cyclists rates. They are also half as frequent as on private e-scooters, despite their incidents being often reported together. Essentially, this new information provided by MMfE is showing clearly that shared e-scooters are a safe and reliable way to get around, and the numbers on safety are improving every year.

We care about safety for our riders and for everyone with whom our riders share the streets. Our report on scooter trips between 2020 and 2022 find that electric scooters present little danger to other road users, like pedestrians. Of the .01% of safety incidents Lime reported, the majority (79%) were falls involving only Lime users. Only 2% of incidents involved pedestrians, the vast majority of whom required no medical attention. We will always keep working to keep both our riders and pedestrians safe in every city we serve.

The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of danger on city streets is caused by cars and trucks. In both the MMfE factsheet and our safety report, cars and trucks were found to be the biggest source of traffic fatalities for pedestrians, cyclists, and shared scooter riders. Therefore, MMfE concludes with a set of recommendations to improve the safety of vulnerable road users:

  • Investment in protected infrastructures
  • Harmonize incident reporting standards in the EU
  • Acknowledge e-scooter riders as vulnerable road users
  • Encourage rules enforcement by local authorities

At Lime our mission is to build a future where transportation is shared, affordable, and carbon-free. We know that the future we want to see must be built on a foundation of safety, and we are proud of the work we are doing every day to keep our riders and their fellow travelers safe. The new data shared by MMfE this week strongly support our efforts and provide a clear road forward for us and for the cities we serve to continue to improve safety and protect all vulnerable road users, including shared e-scooter riders, from the dangers posed by cars and trucks. All of us at Lime will keep working to ensure our e-scooters are a safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable way to get around all the cities we serve.

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