Lime bikes have become a familiar nuisance on pavements across the country.
A Daily Mail investigation has uncovered why riders who abandon rented e-bikes across streets and walkways are so often able to avoid consequences.
The technology used by Lime has serious shortcomings, our findings suggest, allowing riders in certain locations to leave bikes wherever they choose without facing a penalty.
Enforcement appeared so limited that our reporter was able to leave bikes blocking London landmarks and outside multi-million-pound homes without receiving any warning or fine. This was despite the operator’s pledge to punish poor parking.
The result has been disorder in towns and cities nationwide, with rows of 80lb electric bikes obstructing access to railway stations and businesses.
California-based e-bike company Lime operates in cities around the UK, including Salford, Nottingham, Oxford and Milton Keynes.
Poor parking has been especially persistent in London, where some councils do not require customers to leave bikes in designated bays.
Lime says that in these ‘dockless’ areas, users must leave their bikes ‘neatly to the side of the pavement’.
Lime bikes have become a widespread obstruction on pavements across the country
After our reporter left a bike in a position clearly blocking the entrance to a Greenwich home, the Lime app displayed only a message that could be ignored
Guidance on its website says riders ‘should always be considerate of other pavement users’ and lists five parking rules.
Riders are asked to take a photo of how they have parked and upload it to Lime’s app.
But the Mail has found that this does little to ensure its rules are followed. Our investigation spanned three south London boroughs that allow dockless parking: Wandsworth, Southwark and Greenwich.
We discovered that, when parking in a spot clearly obstructing a footpath or entrance, the Lime app displayed a message stating: ‘Move vehicle out of footpath: To help everyone get past, move your vehicle away from footpaths, entrances and ramps.’
But each time our reporter was able to ignore this message and park the bike.
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It meant we were able to walk away from bikes blocking entrances to the likes of the Greenwich Theatre and the Globe Theatre, despite the app recognising that it was obstructing pedestrians. We even managed to leave a bike on the steps of Southwark Cathedral.
The app also allowed us to park bikes inside the porches of multimillion pound houses.
The Lime app was better at preventing parking in ‘exclusion zones’, such as those surrounding the Cutty Sark and Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, but this was not always the case.
Even when positioned in the middle of Greenwich’s bustling market, which is supposed to be protected by an exclusion zone, the Lime bikes could still be parked
The Lime bike could even be parked on the steps of the entrance to Southwark Cathedral
We managed to park bikes in the middle of bustling markets in Borough and Greenwich, which are supposed to be protected by exclusion zones. Our reporter moved all the bikes after they had been parked.
Lime has said that users who don’t park according to its rules receive a warning, followed by escalating fines of up to £20 before repeat offenders are banned from its service.
However, the Mail was not issued a single warning despite committing 26 parking contraventions.
Lime has struggled to tackle the issue because its GPS technology is not accurate enough to determine whether a bike has been parked properly.
Just last week, Lime apologised to a blind couple after an app glitch led to bikes blocking pavements in Bromley, south-east London, where the firm’s bikes are not permitted, forcing them to walk across a busy main road with their guide dog.
Earlier this year, Lime announced that it was rolling out new bikes with improved GPS technology, which it said would make ‘a huge difference’ to parking enforcement.
But Erik Matthies, policy lead at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, said its efforts ‘clearly still fall short of what is needed’.
Mr Matthies, who has sight loss, said e-bikes ‘present a danger’ to blind and partially sighted people when parked badly.
A Lime spokesman said: ‘Proper parking is important to Lime and we take instances of misparked vehicles seriously.
‘This year alone we’ve issued hundreds of thousands of warnings and tens of thousands of fines to riders who parked incorrectly in London.’