Lime Rider Killed In DC, Marking Second Scooter Fatality This Month

A Lime scooter rider was killed on Friday (September 21) by an SUV in a scooter accident around Washington D.C.’s DuPont neighborhood.

The adult man was taken to the hospital with critical, life-threatening injuries, and eventually succumbed to his injuries.

The news comes as the San Francisco-based scooter sharing company launched a pilot program in Tacoma, Washington, on the same day, and less than one month after a 24-year-old Dallas, Texas man fell off the scooter he was riding and died from blunt force injuries to his head, according to TechCrunch.

Just last week, Lime and its rival Bird revealed that they have provided 20 million rides combined since their launches, underscoring the adoption of these services.

Lime said customers have taken 11.5 million bike and electric scooter rides in the 14 months it has been in service, while Bird, which is focused on e-scooters, provided more than 10 million rides in its first 12 months of operations. Lime added that it is gearing up to launch in an additional 50 cities around the globe before the close out of 2018.

As more scooters enter the market, the chances of an accident grows. For its part, Bird has initiated a “Save Our Sidewalks” campaign, urging other electric scooter companies to pledge to retrieve all vehicles from city streets every night, keep from increasing the number of vehicles in a given city — unless they are being used, on average, at least three times per vehicle per day — and offer to remit $1 per vehicle per day to city governments  — so they can use the money to build more bike lanes, promote safety and maintain the shared infrastructure.

CEO Travis VanderZanden wrote in a letter to the CEOs of Lime, Ofo, Mobike and Jump, “Although we are competitors, we all share a passion for the transformation that we are all working to bring about. But as an industry of innovators, we need to lead not just on technology, but on social responsibility. We hope that all of you join us in this S.O.S. Pledge to help our cities thrive.”