Lime says it is fitting its e-bikes in Nottingham with “much stronger” locks, after residents and politicians in nearby Gedling complained that the hire bike provider’s machines were being “unlocked” by criminals and discarded in the borough, which lies outside Lime’s service area.
Lime, which has been on the receiving end of criticism in recent years for the manner in which some of their dockless bikes are parked by users on the pavement, especially in London, first moved its shared transport scheme to Nottingham in 2023.
As part of the provider’s agreement with Nottingham City Council, the e-bikes are only supposed to be used within the city boundary, with the exception of Beeston, with the electric assistance designed to cut out if a user travels beyond these limits.
At the time of Lime’s arrival in the city, Nottinghamshire County Council was approached in order to include Nottingham’s suburbs, but declined to be part of the initiative.
However, this month, residents in Gedling – a borough six miles north-west of Nottingham city centre – have raised concerns that some Lime users are riding the bikes out of the city and discarding them in residential areas in the village.
Earlier this week, a group of local Conservative councillors shared a photo of a Lime bike left on its side on a patch of earth next to a pavement on Burton Road, along with two other e-bikes propped up against fences and wheelie bins.
“Constituents in the Gedling part of Trent Valley have made us aware of Lime Uber bikes breaching the City boundary from Cowlick and being dumped on Burton Road and on residential properties along the Burton Pastures estate,” councillors Sam Smith and Mike Adams said in a statement.
“These bikes are only licensed to operate within the City. We will be getting in touch with the police as it’s believed the bikes are being stolen, rather than hired using the app, which is enabling them to move into the Gedling Borough boundary.”
Meanwhile, local resident Sue wrote on Facebook: “I just saw an abandoned bike on the Colwick Loop Road, on the pavement. It’s a bit of an obstacle and I just thought ‘why?’”
“It’s been happening for quite a few months and the odd one has been parked right outside the wall here where the electricity box is. Whoever hires them is responsible, or if they’ve nicked them,” another Burton Road resident said.
Describing the situation as “annoying and frustrating”, councillor Smith told Nottinghamshire Live: “People pay a lot of money to live off Burton Road and we make sure that, as councillors, their roads are maintained, grass is cut, and bins are emptied.
“Then they’re being blighted by these bikes that they don’t want outside their house. They’ve been left on residents’ walls and they’re causing a trip hazard when they’re left on pavements.”
Since the councillors’ complaints, Lime has said it is planning on retrofitting its bikes in Nottingham with “much stronger” locks, while confirming the discarded bikes in Gedling are the work of “criminals” in the city forcefully unlocking the bikes.
“First, I am sorry to hear that abandoned bikes are causing your constituents concern. We are always grateful for reports of inappropriately parked for discarded bikes,” a spokesperson for Lime told the councillors in an email.
“You are quite right that this is an issue of criminal damage. It is more complicated than pedalling backwards, but criminals exerting extreme force have in some instances been able to ‘unlock’ a bike, thus riding it without being subject to the controls we impose via our app, and without being identified.
“Although the bike will not provide electric assistance to the rider in this case, it does mean that they can take a bike beyond the service area.
“This is a relatively recent phenomenon, and we are moving at pace to address it. As well as frustrating your residents, it damages our business, having to deal with the criminal abuse of our bikes.
“We are retrofitting out bikes in Nottingham with much stronger locks, which will be much harder to break. This won’t happen overnight, but we should see results in the coming weeks.”
That response has been praised by the Conservative councillors, who thanked Lime for their “positive and proactive” approach to the situation, which they hope “should prevent this issue going forward”.
In a statement, the hire bike provider also said: “We have a number of measures in place to effectively manage inconsiderately parked bikes in the Nottingham area. These include: GPS-based no parking zones and mandatory end trip photos to help review rider parking.
“We encourage the public to report any incidents of mis-parked bikes – including time and location – so we can take swift action. We’re continuing to work closely with Nottingham City Council and the relevant authorities to ensure our service remains safe and accessible for everyone.”
When approached for comment, a Nottingham City Council spokesperson said: “Nottingham City Council are aware of the issue and are working with Lime and local stakeholders.
“Lime relies upon and is grateful for reports from either the public or stakeholders that can help direct urgent operational resource to rectify issues.”
Of course, as noted above, concerns about discarded Lime bikes aren’t unique to Nottinghamshire.
In April, Boat Race spectators who travelled to the event in south-west London by Lime bike were criticised for parking them in residential areas, leading to some local groups decrying the “swarms” of green and white e-bikes “blocking the roads in Putney”.
And a month later, the owner of a popular restaurant in north-west London often frequented by celebrities threatened the local council and hire bike providers Lime and Forest with legal action, claiming that his business has been “besieged” by the e-bikes thanks to the recent installation of a designated parking bay.
Earlier this year, Lime responded to these seemingly endless complaints concerning the parking of its bikes by announcing the launch of a £20m ‘Action Plan’ to improve e-bike parking in London, along with deterring its users from “illegally” cycling on pavements and riding through red lights, while also pledging to support efforts to encourage more Londoners to travel by bike.
46 thoughts on ““Nightmare” for residents as “unlocked” Lime Bikes dumped outside city boundary – “blighting” area where “people pay a lot of money to live”, claim councillors”
Lime have known for ages that
Lime have known for ages that it’s trivial to unlock their bikes but haven’t bothered to do anything about it. It happens around where I live all the time, and 99% of the time it’s school kids looking for a free way to get around. Branding them “criminals” is rather pathetic.
Could that have anything to
Could that have anything to do with their business model eg. them still getting their cash from “funding” I wonder…?
I suspect that they have
I suspect that they have totted up how much it would cost to fix the issue Vs how much it costs them in lost rides (probably not that much) and decided it’s not worth their while.
AidanR wrote:
Would you say the same about people fare-dodging on the trains or joyriding in cars? It’s only a question of degree. I’ve got no love for Lime bikes or the company, quite the opposite, but saying it’s not criminal for people to vandalise other people’s property in order to appropriate it for their own use – in other words steal it, albeit temporarily – on the grounds that they’re “just schoolkids looking for a free way to get around” is ridiculous. It is a criminal activity and I assume from the atrocious noise they make that they cost a fair bit to repair once they’ve been “hacked” (“hacked” sounds like some cunning harmless bit of electronic jiggery-pokery but the method actually involves physically breaking the internal wheel locks of the bike). Schoolkids in London all get free bus travel, they’ve already got a free way to get around.
It doesn’t break the wheel
It doesn’t break the wheel lock. Once the Lime bike stops, the lock re-engages. The hack is far more harmless than “electronic jiggery-pokery”.
Sure, technically the kids are stealing a bike for a few minutes, but once they’re done with it then it can be used again as normal. Branding them criminals for that is daft.
Ok, perhaps not criminals.
Ok, perhaps not criminals. But learning that other people’s things are theirs, and you can’t just do as you please, is an important life lesson that has to start early. It’s part of becoming a social being.
It’s a fair step from “I’ll just swipe that bike for a few minutes to get me home more easily and have a bit of a transgressive buzz” to more serious criminality, but the principle is important – play by the rules.
AidanR wrote:
A criminal is somebody who commits a crime. Stealing a bike is a crime, whether or not you’re doing it for a few minutes or to keep permanently. Stealing a bike like this is not a victimless crime as you seem to believe, the company that owns the bike is deprived of potential revenues whilst it is not available for hire and potential customers are deprived of the opportunity to hire it (lots of stories online of people finding a nearby available bike on the app and reserving it to ride to work only to find that when they go to pick it up that the bike has been stolen). Furthermore the stolen bikes are causing reputational damage to the company and inconvenience to the public: it’s obvious that someone who has stolen a bike and is untraceable, unlike a paying customer, isn’t going to give a bollocks about where they dump it and often will do something silly with it just for a laugh (Lime claim that the majority of bikes they have to fish out of canals, rivers etc (at further expense to the company) are ones that have been hacked, which makes sense, a paying customer doesn’t want to be penalised and most likely will want to leave the bike where they can get it for the return journey).
Now you may say you couldn’t care less about Lime, its revenues or its customers and frankly neither could I, but are we going to condone crimes if they only affect people or entities that we don’t care about? Where are you going to draw the line, is it okay for people to dodge their fare on the train because after all they are only using that seat “for a few minutes, but once they are done with it it can be used again as normal.” That’s okay, isn’t it? Sure, the train companies will lose revenue and so put up fares for everybody else but really it’s a victimless crime so it’s daft to brand fare dodgers as criminals, surely?
In addition, what sort of message does it send to kids to say, as you appear to be doing, that it’s OK to break the law as long as it’s only a minor crime and you don’t really do anyone any harm, at least not direct harm that you can see? Once you set a precedent saying one crime is excusable it’s inevitable that others start to be seen as excusable as well.
My point is, Lime could have
My point is, Lime could have easily fixed this issue but appears to have decided that instead it’s not worth the cost to do so vs lost revenue. Or the reputational damage from badly parked bikes that result. Instead, they’re calling these kids criminals. Technically they’re committing a crime, but when most people think of a “criminal” they’re imagining someone going around assaulting and mugging people, not the incredibly low-level crime of jacking a bike for a few minutes.
I’m quite happy to accept
I’m quite happy to accept that Lime are a moneygrubbing company who are only interested in profit (their attitude towards people who suffer property damage or injury at the hands of their riders seems definitely to confirm that, although they have apparently spent considerable sums fixing the “hack” issue and it’s certainly the case that one sees far fewer of them around so not sure your accusation that they couldn’t be bothered to rectify matters holds water) and at the same time to say that I don’t think that it’s ridiculous or wrong to call people who steal their property criminals. See again the fare dodging analogy above: the train companies could spend more on inspectors etc to crack down on fare dodging and maybe they have decided the extra effort/expense isn’t worth the lost revenue, and fare dodgers aren’t permanently stealing anything from the company, just “borrowing” a seat, does that mean we should turn a blind eye to fare dodgers and/or not call them criminals?
Rendel Harris wrote:
<pedant>If it’s only temporarily, then technically it’s not stealing, since stealing requires intent to permanently deprive.</pedant>
That doesn’t mean it’s not still a crime, though.
mdavidford wrote:
I take the point but isn’t there also a caveat in law whereby stealing is also taking something with the intention of treating it as your own and depriving the owner of its benefits without their permission, even if there is no intent permanently to deprive them of it? The CPS give the example of somebody who “borrows” someone else’s season ticket without permission, even if they later return it and show that they always had the intention of doing so it still counts as theft.
I think fare dodging covers
I think fare dodging covers it. You could claim “but the seat was empty – and it was travelling anyway regardless of whether a person was in it or not”. (Or “the movie was shown anyway” or “the library has the books anyway” etc.-)
However I think the law allows for this to be an offence – if not legal “theft”. And as noted it’s not just a loss of revenue to the operator (which they may eventually pass on to customers) but if someone else is using something then it’s not available for others.
Anyway – I suspect such bike share systems are mostly a symptom of an unhealthy transport environment. While there are probably *niches* for such in a better system, where public transport is good and active travel (and personal bike storage! ) is well provided for I think people are going to mostly use those. And would still be irritated by unexpected things in the way (*cough* parked motor vehicles).
So those who park cars on the
So those who park cars on the pavement are pavement thieves?
Car Delenda Est wrote:
I like this idea. Or call them pavement TWOC-ers (probably obsolescent acronym now) / soace bilkers?
At least in Edinburgh that is now actionable (with caveats / get-outs, of course).
Car Delenda Est wrote:
I would certainly regard them as such but a closer analogy would be people who park in paid bays or residential parking areas without paying for a ticket/permit, depriving others of use of the amenity and depriving the Council of revenue.
Yup, it’s using a resource –
Yup, it’s using a resource – depriving others the opportunity temporarily, probably longer if bikes are dumped somewhere less accessible. Plus usage incurs wear – again if you’re not paying or accountable the chances of less careful use increase.
What I don’t get is why people would approve of *both* the “private company gets to make cash (mostly indirectly via ‘venture capital’) by putting its property all over public space” and “kids abusing that resource (that others have to pay for) is fine also” at the same time.
But perhaps this makes sense in a “pirates are cool; it’s life so you can do anything they can’t stop you from doing” way? So companies don’t ask permission but just take the space / kids don’t pay for use they just hack the bikes and utilise the resource?
But then I’m a “no” for both… or rather if we’re *going* to have taxes and governmentally managed road space let’s just focus on providing alternatives to driving. So better public transport (companies can make money here) but nick fare-dodgers. And much better provision for active travel (it’s a private mode – and without specific cycle tax the pirates should be happy as they can ride [their own bike] all they like for no cost!).
Several thoughts. First there
Several thoughts. First there should be legislation that the companies involed EG Lime should have a fool proof locking system . I bet the military or NASA do it. Without a legitimate payment the bike won’t be able to physically move from its parking dock. They should only be able to be left in identified physical locking areas. Until they are locked back in a dock for example, the meter will be still running. You’ll not stop a thief with a JCB but you’ll stop the casual thief. So what if your parking dock isn’t right outside your door.
mattsccm wrote:
What? NASA are running bike share schemes now? I thought Trump had cracked down on all their “non-core” projects?
Hire bikes and scooters
Hire bikes and scooters regularly turn up well outside the Bristol geomarked boundary; are they all stolen/hacked, too?
It’s realistic to recognise
It’s realistic to recognise that one of the perks of living in an expensive area tends to mean less anti-social behaviour, but a politician saying out loud that people who have bought an expensive house are more entitled to be free from anti-social behaviour, and that a private company should take that into account, makes it much harder to be sympathetic to what is otherwise a legitimate complaint.
Yes. It seems to imply that
Yes. It seems to imply that people living in a lower council tax band area should reasonably expect regular murders and perhaps weekly gang shootouts.
So rich folk are salt-of-the
So rich folk are salt-of-the-earth folks then?
Yesterday’s pic from
Yesterday’s pic from davewalkercartoons sums up how trivial this really is.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DL7keSco10v/
Brilliant! Was about to post
Brilliant! Was about to post the same!
I was going to say. I live in
I was going to say. I live in Tunbridge Wells which is by all accounts an expensive and affluent area. I cannot walk a few metres without coming across rubbish. People routinely leave bins overflowing. Shopping carts dumped regularly, usually on pavements. People leaving rubbish outside their houses for weeks. People dumping old sofas outside their houses rotting. So many pavements blocked by people who have all the concern in the world for their cars and zero for any pedestrians or other users of the pavements.
I wouldn’t even notice if a lime bike was dumped around here. At least someone has a vested interest in collecting it.
It’s the European way just
It’s the European way just drop it where they stand.
When I went to Japan, it took a while to register but their streets parks trains, etc were all clear of litter.
My mum lives on Burton Road
My mum lives on Burton Road in the Gedling area of Nottingham mentioned in the article. I go there 2 or 3 times a week. Think I’ve only ever seen 1 Lime bike left abandoned.
However the pavements are full of cars literally everywhere. It seems odd that the residents are complaining about the odd bicycle.
Oh, and if they want to talk about anti social issues perhaps they should turn their are on the persistent speeding at all hours of the day by motorists on what is a 30mph road 🤔
I’ll go on a hunt for Lime
I’ll go on a hunt for Lime bikes tomorrow when I visit, sh9w everyone how bad it really is!
One other thing. Councillors
One other thing. Councillors Smith and Adams have recently had a bus gate removed on Burton Road and the volume of traffic now using the road has gone through the roof. Allegedly removing it has decreased pollution by the posh houses, but it has increased dramatically further up the road closer to the city boundary.
You couldn’t make it up.
“Constituents in the Gedling
“Constituents in the Gedling part of Trent Valley have made us aware of Lime Uber bikes breaching the City boundary from Cowlick and being dumped on Burton Road and on residential properties along the Burton Pastures estate,”
Well, I wonder who would dump the bikes there? Almost certainly the local youth after a night out in Nottingham. Maybe tackle the problem by providing late night buses?
Nightmare? Blight? The residents of Gedling must lead the quietest of lives. Given the reports of speeding and pavement parking, this sounds rather more like bike bias than genuine concerns.
There are late night buses
There are late night buses servicing the area. That isn’t the problem. There is a secondary school, Carlton le Willows which is where some of the bikes are being dumped. Obviously pupils think cycling to school is cool. Perhaps the local residents should take note.
In much the same way that
In much the same way that baseball caps with tags and stickers still attached to make it appear stolen are popular, children can appear ‘bad-ass’ by riding an obviously hi-jacked Lime bike. To these young kids appearance and reputation can be everything. It doesn’t have to be more convenient; they will all have free child passes for the buses anyway, but the ‘stolen’ bike enhances their credibility amongst their peers.
eburtthebike wrote:
Is it possible that the villagers may find that culprits are actually village residents? It would be quite odd for many bike thieves all to decide that’s the place to abandon the wheels and make a run for it.
Strikes me that this could
Strikes me that this could largely be solved with lockable parking bays for the bikes. Afterall, there are already designated parking areas. This would also prevent the mindless acts of them being kicked over and thrown around. This very question was put to Lime in the below article but they sidestepped answering it with their response. These aren’t bikes being appropriated for keeps so would be unlikely to be the target of bolt cropper or angle grinder attacks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d1528yvy2o
Cycle Happy wrote:
You mean – a docked rather than dockless system? Or even something like this:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/renting-a-bicycle-from-a-locker/
Yes, kind of. I was thinking
Yes, kind of. I was thinking more like the ones used for Boris / Santander bikes.
Cycle Happy wrote:
The problem with a docking system is that it would take away a huge proportion of the USP of Lime and other dockless hire bikes which is that you can ride them straight up to your destination. We probably shouldn’t live in a world where people will stop using a form of transport just because it means they’ll have to walk two or three hundred yards at the end of their journey, but we do. Even if lots of docking stations are provided, there’s always the problem of capacity, especially in busier areas and when there are big events on. I don’t use hire bikes in London but a number of times using the Velibs in Paris we’ve had quite a time of it cycling round a fairly large part of the centre trying to find a docking station with enough space for us to lock the bikes up (and stop being charged!). I’m not a big fan of Lime bikes and especially not the random parking across pavements, but I think we have to accept that compulsory docking would pretty much kill the business.
Rendel Harris wrote:
As demonstrated by the howls of outrage when parking spaces are removed…
Rendel Harris wrote:
And you’d be forcing a draconian solution for a relatively harmless problem when car drivers get away with it all of the time.
Motor manufacturers havent solved pavement parking – why should bike hire companies have to? Its just another aspect of Motornormativity at work.
Secret_squirrel wrote:
The visually impaired will disagree with you. Pavement parking is a big issue but a car is a lot easier to see and navigate around than a bunch of white bikes scattered across the pavement randomly. Ultimately it is an indication that the issue isn’t related to vehicle, rather a thoughtless society that puts an individuals convenience over the inconvenience of the genuinely less well off.
Adam Sutton wrote:
And you’d be forcing a draconian solution for a relatively harmless problem when car drivers get away with it all of the time.
Motor manufacturers havent solved pavement parking – why should bike hire companies have to? Its just another aspect of Motornormativity at work.
— Secret_squirrel The visually impaired will disagree with you. Pavement parking is a big issue but a car is a lot easier to see and navigate around than a bunch of white bikes scattered across the pavement randomly. Ultimately it is an indication that the issue isn’t related to vehicle, rather a thoughtless society that puts an individuals convenience over the inconvenience of the genuinely less well off.— Rendel Harris
Possibly – but those with physical disabilities may disagree again. Cars often not being easier to navigate around – and other people can’t shift them for you either.
I think we may be able to do better than shrug and declare “humans”. That’s true but actually the systems matter. We know it’s possible to engineer behaviour to some extent * because we can look to other places with slightly different outcomes (e.g. this). Although whether the politics can be shifted to achieve change is a question.
Certainly – we know what we’ve got through prioritising private motor transport (mass motoring). And while people may of course dump their own (private) bikes antisocially, allowing private companies (largely funded by venture capital money AFAICS) to effectively encourage them to do ** has predictable results.
* One striking example being reductions in measured average speeds simply by changing numbers on the signs; even though everyone knows road policing is minimal and there are known more effective ways.
** It seems there’s lack of feedback all the way down. Some of these companies don’t appear to be particularly motivated to look after their property, and there is almost no feedback to users for bad behaviour. So they won’t be worried about dumping a public bike – no issue for them if it gets moved or trashed or even stolen after leaving it, unlike their own bike.
This isn’t a competition, as
This isn’t a competition, as I stated pavement parking is an big issue, I’ve even hounded the council over it before we moved. So I’m not sure why you’re deflecting, maybe an indicator that the narrative here is still little more than cycling good, driving bad.
As someone who has lost count of the number of hospital visits I’ve had in the last year, undergone changes of medication, additional medication and laser treatment for an eye condition, I’ll admit I’more aware these days of the challenges of the visually impaired. I suggest you have a look at the state of pavements in many places in London. It isn’t cars causing the issue there.
Adam Sutton wrote:
Um – it was you that started down the ‘which is worse’ route.
Far from deflecting, CoaB has been pretty consistently critical, or at least sceptical, of dockless ride share schemes and the ‘parking’ that results from them, including in the very post you’re relying to. I think you may need to go back and read it again.
And yet Dockless bays exists
And yet Dockless bays exists for cars and motorcycles everywhere.
You’ve fallen into the trap of solving for the wrong problem.
But why add more problems?
But why add more problems? And what problem is being “solved” by dockless bike companies? I’m not convinced they are currently replacing many car journeys – although perhaps someone has numbers?
I can think of a few “problems this solves” but they’re not ones I think we should be solving – like “how to tap into all that venture capital?”, “how can local authorities who’ve failed to provide effective on-street public transport cheaply cover their modesty while claiming to be providing alternatives to driving” etc.
Clearly people ride public hire bikes. And it seems that “3rd rate or less cycling cities” e.g. London, some of the better places in US / Canada etc. are quite keen on them.
But (again – pending statistics) I would imagine these are significantly outnumbered by journeys taken by people on their own bikes. Or maybe not, in the early days of a city growing the modal share for cycling?
And clearly motor vehicles where they shouldn’t be are an issue e.g. on the cycling and walking infra is a problem. There are different trade-offs – it’s not too hard to shift misplaced bikes, but there is apparently zero consequence for riders who dump them. There certainly isn’t sufficient consequence for illegal parkers but it *is* currently done etc.
Docking stations work really
Docking stations work really well in a city centre location where multiple parking sites and high populatoin/location density make it convenient, but as it expands into smaller cities and into suburbs, the Santander model doesn’t work as well. The bikes are wanted for convenience, and too provide sufficient docking stations to avoid long walks at either end of your journey wouild be too expensive.