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A Software Malfunction Is Throwing Riders Off of Lime Scooters (qz.com) 136

Posted by BeauHD from the something-is-off dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Riders in Switzerland and New Zealand have reported the front wheels of their electric scooters locking suddenly mid-ride, hurling riders to the ground. The malfunction has resulted in dozens of injuries ranging from bruises to broken jaws. Lime pulled all its scooters from Swiss streets in January when reports of the incidents surfaced there. When the city of Auckland, New Zealand voted to suspend the company earlier this week following 155 reported cases of sudden braking, the company acknowledged that a software glitch was causing the chaos. The company claims that fewer than 0.0045% of all rides worldwide have been affected, adding that "any injury is one too many." An initial fix reduced the number of incidents, it said, and a final update underway on all scooters will soon be complete. "Recently we detected a bug in the firmware of our scooter fleet that under rare circumstances could cause sudden excessive braking during use," Lime wrote in a blog post Saturday. "[I]n very rare cases -- usually riding downhill at top speed while hitting a pothole or other obstacle -- excessive brake force on the front wheel can occur, resulting in a scooter stopping unexpectedly."
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A Software Malfunction Is Throwing Riders Off of Lime Scooters More

A Software Malfunction Is Throwing Riders Off of Lime Scooters

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  • Sounds like they have (Score:3, Funny)

    by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @09:16AM (#58172256) Journal

    Lime disease! ...

    Yeah!

  • what a stupid design (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @09:37AM (#58172302)
    who was stupid enough to decide to put the brake controls though computer/software??? the brakes should be the old fashioned hand/lever brakes with a cable going down to the wheels then you dont have to worry about the software for it, by running the brakes though a computer/software is just making a scooter more complicated than it needs to be, the best philosophy is to Keep it Simple

    • Re:what a stupid design (Score:5, Informative)

      by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @09:38AM (#58172306) Homepage

      They use electronically activated brakes to keep people from using the scooters without paying.

      • Re:what a stupid design (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @09:42AM (#58172318)
        now Lims is paying for that decision, they should have just prevented the motor from turning until it was rented

        • now Lims is paying for that decision, they should have just prevented the motor from turning until it was rented

          Sounds like an attack vector for the Internet of Scooters as well. I guess those old school keys are just not cool enough.

          • Re:what a stupid design (Score:5, Interesting)

            by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @09:57AM (#58172374)

            Sounds like an attack vector for the Internet of Scooters as well.

            These scooters seem to have a lot of enemies.

            My first thought that this braking was caused by malevolent hackers who are annoyed by scooters.

            • Re:what a stupid design (Score:5, Insightful)

              by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @10:16AM (#58172426)

              Sounds like an attack vector for the Internet of Scooters as well.

              These scooters seem to have a lot of enemies

              It comes from being a "disruptor". Which is hipster speak for

              I'm going to do what I want and I don't care what you think or how it affects you because you are not our target demographic, (even if doing so breaks laws)

              • Re:what a stupid design (Score:4, Interesting)

                by kevmeister ( 979231 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @01:45PM (#58173114) Homepage

                It comes from being a "disruptor". Which is hipster speak for

                I'm going to do what I want and I don't care what you think or how it affects you because you are not our target demographic, (even if doing so breaks laws)

                Palm Springs dealt with Bird by simply pointing out that they were operating with no business license. They then sent out crews to pick up all of the scooters. Bird was informed that they could pick up their property by paying the impound and storage fees. At last report Bird had not responded. I've seen no recent reports as to whether the scooters have been auctioned off as unclaimed property.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by c ( 8461 )

          I'd expect that if they didn't have a way to lock the brakes, they'd have no way to prevent someone from using the scooter "manually".

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        Anyone that has actually used two-wheeled vehicles knows that to safely disable or brake, you do that on the rear wheel, that way malfunctions don't cause you to flip head over.

        • Anyone who has actually learned to use two-wheeled vehicles properly knows that the rear brake locks the wheel which leads to skidding and is generally very weak and hence should only be used when riding downhill. Otherwise use either just the front brake or both brakes at the same time while moving your weight backwards and pushing against the handle bars.

        • Anyone who actually is proficient in using two-wheeled vehicles knows you're supposed to use both brakes simultaneously in all but a very short list of circumstances.
          Source: being a motorcycle rider for over 35 years, being on a road racing team for the last 10 years.

      • Re: what a stupid design (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        First-generation Bird and Lime scooters in Austin have mechanical, lever-operated front disc brakes.

        The new garbage only has electronic regenerative braking.

        I expect that any of them could use the drive motor (front wheel) as a brake regardless.

        However, your comment is garbage because in no case can you ride them without payment, as the motor will not turn on. This is what keeps them from being ridden, not an active brake. If you move them far enough for GPS to notice, they start beeping bloody murder.

        • They also have cable-actuated drum brakes on the rear wheel. They are terribly weak and usually badly adjusted though.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        Which in a sound design would be controlled by a circuit that was disabled when the wheel is in motion, *thus preventing a software or malware mediated accident*.

        • This was my thinking too; this is safety-critical stuff, and it only costs one IO pin and a transistor to do a hardware lockout based on the intended vehicle state. For a lockout when the wheel is in motion, they could use an op-amp for a timed delay. Making sure it is locked out at very low speed is hard, but if you're moving over 1 MPH it should be trivial to detect.

          This attitude of, "oh goody, it is smaller than a car, so safety doesn't matter! Yeehah! Freedom Fries!" is just stupid.

        • Re:what a stupid design (Score:4, Interesting)

          by samwichse ( 1056268 ) on Monday February 25, 2019 @07:56AM (#58175712)

          "...usually riding downhill at top speed while hitting a pothole or other obstacle..."

          It sounds like that's how the software worked, but those darn users found an edge case.

          Downhill at top speed: user is not applying motor. So the "motor called for" lockout on braking is off.

          While hitting a pothole: User is braking, hits a big pothole with the non-suspension front wheel. This would cause the wheel to momentarily stop turning. Now the "wheel is in motion" lockout on braking is off.

          Now imagine their time is up, and the software is ticking down waiting for the wheels to stop turning and power to stop being applied to lock the brakes. And then the above scenario happens.

          The fix will probably be as simple as changing the "wheels not turning" value to "wheels not turning for 2s." Those silly users break everything :)

          Sam

    • Whether or not they normally use an actual physical brake instead of brake by wire (which they probably are, never used one), the bug could be just unintentionally turning on motor braking, causing pretty much the same problem.

    • Re:what a stupid design (Score:5, Interesting)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @10:00AM (#58172388)

      who was stupid enough to decide to put the brake controls though computer/software???

      There is nothing inherently wrong with using computer controlled brakes. This is done in all sorts of industrial automation.

      However, with that said the Safety integrity level (SIL) [wikipedia.org] is a well known specification used to asses failure levels and the consequence of said failures. And in order to meet the higher levels, you have to have all sorts of fancy analysis that predicts the likelihood of a failure, and provides mechanisms to mitigate that failure.

      And I bet that these clowns haven't even considered such a thing and are producing a device that could potentially kill someone (EG sudden braking flipping the rider into the path of a moving vehicle).

      As an example I am working on automated cranes used in places where people could be killed if a software/hardware failure occurs. In order to reach our required SIL level we require a safety computer that is physically separate (and runs independently) from the main computer and can shut down operations when it detects certain conditions.

      • Your industrial knowledge points you towards safety but the standard you are pointing to is about active safety interlocking for mitigating an event. If you're looking at a system whereby failure of control automatically leads to an incident you're working in the continuous operation realm, the standards for SIL in this case are typically applied where failure will result in multiple millions of dollars of damage along with killing multiple people. Additionally to apply SIL need to have a determined safe st

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by OzPeter ( 195038 )

          I am not precluding inherently safe design, but if you manufacture a system that has a failure mode that causes injury or death then you need to take that into account, and SIL levels are the appropriate method of assessing it. And in those cases mitigation is the correct term to use. SIL analysis is statistical in nature, thus there can be no absolutes, so can only mitigate the affects of a failure, you can't completely design out the possibility of a failure. And yes, even intentionally applying the br

    • Friend, so far as I'm concerned, putting a motor on a stand-up scooter is a momumentally stupid idea to begin with, and when they did it anyway it should have been limited in speed to a fast walk, not double-digit miles-per-hour speed.

      • To say nothing about putting a motor on a stand-up scooter and placing many of said scooters at random places on the sidewalk where the random public can just get on and ride them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Friend, so far as I'm concerned, putting a motor on a stand-up scooter is a momumentally stupid idea to begin with, and when they did it anyway it should have been limited in speed to a fast walk, not double-digit miles-per-hour speed.

        Do your requirements also include a person walking in front of them waving a red flag?

        • Nice sarcasm by way of a historical reference, and by the way calling me a 'luddite' out of the side of your mouth is fucking lame.

          It's not the scooters themselves it's the idiots using them which is pretty much all of them, which apparently you aren't picking up on for some reason. Too many of these people have problems walking down the street without screwing up, then you put them on a stand-up scooter that can go 10+ miles per hour, and actually expect there won't be any problems? Unsecured load (the

    • who was stupid enough to decide to put the brake controls though computer/software???

      Let's flip this around. Here's the functional requirements:

      1. You have your toys publicly lying in the street.
      2. An interface is required to rent your toys and it needs to electronically work with a mobile phone.
      3. This interface should lock the wheels to prevent the toy being used without being hired.

      Go forth and design. Let's see if you're as stupid as the rest of those engineers.

      • If your functional requirements don't include:

        4. The toy should not arbitrarily cause injury or death to the user;

        ...guess where the stupid starts.

        • Well that much is a given in the functional requirements, but then actual injury is not a given of the design.

          Can you come up with another system where a computer is in control of brakes, has a system to engage them if it so chooses without any mechanical interlocking mechanism, and is designed to not be fail safe meaning the brakes would be rendered in operative in certain failures?

          If you guess the common car then you should give yourself an internet cookie.

      • There is no need for electronic breaks. (I'm actually quite surprised they went to the expense of powered breaks.) They're powered by a DC motor so a relay across the terminals will put a massive load on the motor making it effectively unusable. That relay is not triggered by software, the user pushes a button to latch it in (that has to be done to end the ride and end the billing). You can do the same thing with solenoid activated latch on a traditional mechanical hand break.

        • I'm actually quite surprised they went to the expense of powered breaks.

          You can do the same thing with solenoid activated latch on a traditional mechanical hand break.

          You're surprised they went to the expense of an electric brake (which can use up to no additional parts depending on the motor controller) but instead you propose a far more expensive mechanism?

          Follow the money, they went with powered brakes precisely because alternatives are an additional expense.

          • By powered breaks, I was meaning electrically actuated mechanical breaks, (traditional bicycle hand breaks + a servo to close them). I'm not familiar with these scooters so I'm assuming they are not relying totally on motor breaking. That would be massively irresponsible for a vehicle that they know isn't going to be subjected to actual fail-safe designs standards and qualifications.

            • I'm sure they didn't go with powered braking. It's almost certainly electrical brakes on the DC motor (I haven't used these scooters but I've used other electric scooters). Remember you don't need to lock the wheel to make the scooter completely useless for theft, and a DC brake is capable of a large force when the motor is spinning.

              That would be massively irresponsible for a vehicle that they know isn't going to be subjected to actual fail-safe designs standards and qualifications.

              As a quick comparison do you realise that your car has both non fail-safe brakes (loss of braking system results in loss of brakes), as well as electronic control capabl

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mlyle ( 148697 )

      The "front brake" is almost certainly regenerative braking on the motor, while the rear brake is a mechanical brake.

      There is really relatively few choices besides the front motor effort (including regenerative effort) to be under software/firmware control.

  • Autonomous (Score:3)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @09:40AM (#58172312)
    I can't wait until this technology is in cars!

    • I can't wait until this technology is in cars!

      Wait [wikipedia.org] no [wikipedia.org] longer [wikipedia.org]. (Also side note, how old is your car that it doesn't have these systems? They've been standard in Mercedes for >20 years now).

      And for some real fun you should check out how truck brakes are designed, whereby any failure, not just a computer bug would result in the brakes activating.

      • Mine's 34 years old.

        It doesn't have all these computers in it (outside of fuel injection, which is very dumb - you can unplug sensors and the engine will still run.) It's very reliable and no gimmicks are needed.

        I prefer driving it compared to newer cars (I've driven some newer cars - they all feel muddy, especially the steering.)

        • *golfclap*. Did you stumble on Slashdot by accident on your way to "Amish Online"? Seriously I don't understand why people jump on a technology forum to praise the fact that they don't like technology and prefer to keep mechanical clunkers running.

          I hope you don't get in an accident. And since I'm sure you genuinely like your car I also hope that it doesn't eventually get banned from the roads.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rv6502 ( 5793142 )

        My car is from 2014 and has none of those. I can buy this year's model and they still have none of those "features". Not all cars cost $40,000.

        • My car is from 2014 and has none of those.

          Indeed it doesn't. What it does however have is ABS, an electronic system that is designed specifically to inhibit your braking. Government standards are there to protect the likes of you who prefer to sacrifice your own safety over a few dollars, expect these listed to be a standard safety feature even for your cheaper car in the near future.

          You are right about one thing, not all cars with this feature cost $40k. Mercedes make cars for less than that with this feature standard. Hell my neighbours crappy Fo

    • GM has had it for years! [lawinfo.com]

  • the machine rebellion has begun!

  • Exclusive! (Score:5, Funny)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @10:47AM (#58172496)

    Here is what users of Lime Scooters have to say [instantrimshot.com] about this problem.

  • Do not write critical real-time software if you do not have what it takes to make it work right. This cannot be done on the cheap successfully. But I guess you are learning that now.

  • Note sure why anyone is against scooters (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday February 24, 2019 @12:34PM (#58172858)

    riding downhill at top speed while hitting a pothole or other obstacle -- excessive brake force on the front wheel can occur

    Just when we thought humanity might be avoiding evolutionary correction, along come scooters to redress the problem!

  • Posting a software fix for this "very rare" occurrence - that has happened in at least 155 reported instances in New Zealand alone, according to TFS - isn't going to do Lime any good, at this point. It's going to face product liability suits, personal injury suits, and class-action suits (despite the laughable prohibition against filing or participating in class action suits in Section 5.8 of its User Agreement [www.li.me], and other language restricting its users available forum for remedies to binding arbitration, an

  • Anyone that's ever endo'd on a bike, skateboard, etc. can tell you how unpleasant and really dangerous sudden deceleration is. On a device that leaves you exposed, it's your worst nightmare.

    But, hey, when it does (rarely) happen, it's when you're going downhill, at high speed! And, that's when an endo is most dangerous.

    "[I]n very rare cases -- usually riding downhill at top speed while hitting a pothole or other obstacle -- excessive brake force on the front wheel can occur, resulting in a scooter stopping

  • A case of braking bad, or moving fast and braking things

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