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Lime e-scooters pulled from Zurich and Basel after accidents

The Local
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Lime e-scooters pulled from Zurich and Basel after accidents
Lime scooters in Paris. File photo: AFP

US firm Lime is temporarily removing all of its 550 electric scooters from the streets of Zurich and Basel because of a technical defect which may have caused several accidents in recent months.

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"We are looking at the evidence. Until the situation has been investigated, we have decided to take all of our e-scooters off the streets of Zurich and Basel. We are looking at each scooter and the software," a spokesperson for the company told Swiss news site Watson.

The Lime app shows that no scooters are currently available in the two cities.

The decision to pull the scooters comes after a series of incidents in which the front brakes of the scooters were allegedly automatically activated when they reached their full speed of around 24kph.

This has led to a number of incidents in which people have ended up in hospital, according to Watson.

In the most serious case, a doctor suffered a complicated elbow fracture while in another incident a man had his shoulder dislocated and was taken to the University Hospital Zurich by ambulance, the news site reported.

In addition to its scooters, Lime also has a fleet of around 500 bicycles in Zurich.

However, the bike sharing concept in Switzerland has not been without its speed bumps. Last year, the company charged with overseeing the oBike service in Zurich called on the public to help locate and remove all of its bicycles after the Singapore-based firm filed for bankruptcy.

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