Lime Director of Policy on Recent Fatalities: You Always Have to be Prepared for Safety Issues
*By Hope King and Jacqueline Corba*
The first two known fatalities involving wildly popular Lime electric scooters occurred this month within weeks of one other.
When asked whether such incidents are inevitable, Emily Warren, Lime's senior director of policy and public affairs said, "The reality of the transportation business is that you always have to be prepared for safety issues."
On Sept. 2, a 24-year old man in Dallas, Tex., who was riding a scooter died after he suffered injuries that [may have been sustained](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/09/04/police-man-dies-after-apparent-electric-scooter-accident/?utm_term=.e3a9007e0c1d) after he fell off his two-wheeler. Nearly three weeks later on Sept. 21 in Washington, D.C., a 20-year old man riding a scooter fatally [collided with an SUV](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/emergency-workers-try-to-rescue-pedestrian-trapped-under-suv-in-dupont-circle/2018/09/21/aec71252-bdaa-11e8-be70-52bd11fe18af_story.html?utm_term=.0f23ae97278d).
"Safety is a critical priority for a company like Lime," Warren said. "We always want to be providing as much education as we can to our riders and do everything we can in the product to make it as safe of an experience as possible for them."
The fatalities coincide with the efforts by Lime and other electric scooter companies to legitimize the business to cities and local government.
Lime, which has been operating for 14 months, recently hit [11.5 million rides](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/20/lime-hits-11-5-million-bike-and-scooter-rides/) and is present in more than 100 markets in the U.S. and Europe.
Competitor Bird has facilitated [more than 10 million rides](https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/20/17878676/electric-scooter-bird-lime-uber-lyft) in its first year of operation and is also present in over 100 cities. Both companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and both have private market valuations above $1 billion.
Their growth is, by no means, slowing. Lime plans to expand to at least 50 more markets before the end of the year, Warren said.
But in order to improve safety measures, Warren said the company will continue to investigate ways to work with cities, "educate" scooter riders and motorists on sharing roads, and distribute helmets.
"In any moment like this, you want to pause at the company and be thoughtful about whether we can do more," she said.
"We've always instructed folks to use helmets and encourage them to do so, let them know about their state and local laws."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-e-scooters-are-transforming-commuter-behavior).
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
