A woman who says she dislocated her hip and broke multiple bones when she crashed an Uber rental scooter is suing the company for failing to equip vehicles with turn signals.
Erin Norman, who crashed on the streets of San Francisco in 2019, filed a lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc. on Thursday. She crashed when she lifted her hand to indicate a turn on a Jump scooter, she said. Uber owned Jump until May 2020, when it sold it to Neutron Holdings, which operates as Lime.
Norman needed emergency surgery and medical care for nine months afterwards, according to the suit. Since the accident, Norman’s quality of life has been “unquestionably diminished.”
Norman accused Uber of failing to provide “any device or mechanism to safely signal a turn” despite designing the vehicles for use on city streets, where signalling is required.
The filing said that the “technology exists to add turn signals to the scooters,” adding that “if these defendants cared about the safety of their riders, they would add turn signals to every scooter in their fleet.”
Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The other defendants in the case are Neutron Holdings, operating as Lime, and manufacturers Segway and Xiaomi. None of them immediately responded to a request for comment.
Uber bought the electric bike and scooter startup Jump for $200 million in 2018. In May, Uber announced it was investing $170 million in transportation company Lime, which also acquired “tens of thousands” of Uber’s Jump bikes.
*by Kate Duffy via Business Insider*
