this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Make the company liable and they’ll come up with their own way to prevent or mitigate this. Their business model is causing this, it’s their job to fix it.

Fine them a punitive amount per occurrence. It’s probably not cheap to discover and we probably only find a fraction of them so the cost must consider that. It must also be high enough to either incentivize a fix or fully cover repair.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Check out how Bicing in Barcelona works, problem is already solved there, no need to start fining lime, just change the legislation so that these services need to have physical locking racks where bikes can be both left and retrieved from, that way they can't be stolen and they'll be kept in better condition because they aren't being pinched constantly.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Lets also address the pollution caused by road runoff.

[–] xzot746 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And all the untreated waste that gets dumped into the rivers as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That is being addressed 👍🏼

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What about the agricultural runoff? That makes it into drinking water.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I'm unaware of what action is being taken to curb agricultures impacts from not only land but also intensive farming such as chicken farms.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Bikes like that promote some of the worst aspects of bicycle culture - inexperienced riders doing high speed with zero regard for where they park once the ride is over. Obviously the bikes shouldn't be tossed in the water, the entire business model should be tossed out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

When I was a kid, if I wanted to ride to school, my school required that I pass a cycling proficiency test, which taught me about road laws and where and how I was supposed to position my bike on the road to stay safe.

I'd love to see a cycling and small electric vehicle proficiency course be part of our school curriculum.

There are always going to be people that ignore the rules of the road (I nearly got hit by a car today who didn't give way to the right on a roundabout, I was watching him, he didn't even look!), but I don't see how adding this in schools could cause harm.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

We had same thing in Greece but with scooters. People used to steal them and throw them in the sea. Crazy.

[–] Quacksalber 7 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Install 360° cameras, film those assholes and make them pay for retrieval.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sounds nice until you think about the implications for everyone that doesn't vandalize or destroy these bikes. I'm most certainly not going to rent one if it has 360° surveillance capabilities.

[–] Quacksalber 0 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The recording nedds to be saved only when the accelerometer detects the bike being thrown.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes totally. I would trust any company to always do this the right way. And there would never be an incident where some footage gets leaked, or passed around the office. "Oops there must have been a malfunction".

Yes like Amazon AND Google haven't been caught saving private conversations that their voice assistants recorded totally unintentionally even though they weren't triggered. They did totally say "sorry" and won't do it again, ever. Right? Right?

[–] Quacksalber -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sure, if you live in a shithole country like the US or a wanna-be-shithile country like the UK, companies can just trample you privacy. But in the EU, privacy is protected and you can easily introduce legislation that any non-government surveillance needs to be set up in a way that makes automatic permanent surveillance impossible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I live in the EU. The violations of Google and Amazon I mentioned also happened in the EU. Feel free to look up the repercussions on those. Having rules is irrelevant if there is no way to actually enforce them, or at least verify them. It would be doable (maybe not quite "easy") to have that verifiable, but there is no system or law in place for it as it stands right now.

You can trust them companies that would put surveillance equipment like that in their stuff to not abuse it, that's your call. I just won't use it. In quite a few EU countries this wouldn't be allowed anyway, btw. At least not with current laws in regards to video recording in and around traffic. For example dash cams are still not fully legal in Germany, and only very limited recording (and storing) of footage is permitted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Sounds like a lot of technology on something that can and will be trashed by the public.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Check out how bicing in Barcelona works, no cameras and surveillance, but you literally cannot retrieve a bike without an account and the app because they are physically locked in racks. It's a brilliant system and ours can be easily fixed with a little legislation.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So constant 360° surveillance?

[–] Quacksalber 2 points 4 days ago

You only need to save the recording when the bike's accelerometer detects the bike being thrown.

[–] IcyToes 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The problem is it's done by folk that don't pay and probably covering their face. The fact the company thinks it's cheaper to lose bikes than pay rent for land for stations to secure the bikes between customers is the problem. They don't care.

[–] Quacksalber 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The modern bikes need an account with valid fiscal info to unlock. There is no way to "not pay".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah there is, they can be bump started really easily, you literally just lift the rear wheel then start moving forward, then put the wheel back down and jump on, I've seen kids do it, it takes zero skill. In the meadows these days I hear a lime alarm pretty much every day.

This is a problem that's already been solved, check out bicing in Barcelona and how that works. This really is a problem of legislation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There absolutely is, people break the disabling mechanism. I've had two go past me today with the obvious clack-clack-clack-clack of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

You just bump start them, there's nothing to break from the outside, you just lift the back wheel and start moving, then drop the wheel and it'll keep going, but with an alarm and a clacking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Fuck that. Lime's business model promotes this sort of littering. These things are left in the most random places and it's a hazard. Just pull them off the streets entirely.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

...or have decent security on them that can't be broken by a 12yo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Drago? Drago? Did you get away safely from that Lime Lawyer?