September 15, 2025 • 6 mins
ACC claims for e-scooter injuries have almost doubled since 2020, with the number expected to continue increasing.
They cost taxpayers almost $14.5 million in 2024 - while $10.3 million has been paid out so far this year.
Christchurch is leading the pack in scooter injuries, with over 400 claims lodged so far in 2025.
Flamingo co-founder Jacksen Love has blamed a lack of proper regulations, but he's hoping new policy changes will improve things.
"We welcome the recent Government announcement that e-scooters will soon be able to operate in bike lanes - I think it's a really positive step."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
East scooters are becoming more risky. Apparently incidents have doubled
in the last five years. So acc data recorded more
than one two hundred injury claims in the last year,
which cost taxpayers fourteen and a half million dollars. And
let me tell you which city top the list. It's
christ Church, over four hundred claims, more than any other
city out there.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Jackson Love is one of the co founders of Flamingo Scooters. Hi, Jackson,
I hear that.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
How are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Very well? Thank you? What's going on? Why is christ
Church so bad? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, it's interesting, isn't it. I think as a key
we owned and operated company, safety is at the heart
of everything we do here at Flamingo. And interestingly, Flamingo
hasn't been down in christ Church for a number of years,
so as a market we'd obviously love to get back
into one day in the future and hopefully improve safety.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What do you think it is though? I would have
expected that it would actually be, but I don't know.
I just thought that a city like Wellington, which is
much more hilly, would have bigger problems with people losing
control on the downslope.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Church. Now, that is interesting I think it's really important
to understand that not all these scooters are the same.
So shared these scooters like Flamingo, they capped at twenty
five kilometers an hour, they've built in safety controls and
we monitor them twenty four to seven. But privately owned
these scooters, on the other hands, you often see them
wizzing down the footpath sort of speeds upwards of forty
(01:22):
fifty kilometers an hour, and there's not really any regulation
there at all. I've also heard in the past that
mope heads and other types of motorized scooters have often
been categorized in all together and included in that same ACTA.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I think, you know what, I'm going to come back
at you. I'm going to come back at you on
this Jackson. I actually think the people the people that
I see misbehaving on the scooters are the people on
hired scooters, not necessarily yours, but any hired scooters like yours.
I think it's the guys who own their own scooters
who are much more responsible because they're much more used
to scooting.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Interesting. Well, yeah, that's an interesting perspective. I think at
Flamingo we work really closely with our Council partners to
manage speed and riding behavior through a number of different measures.
That that includes geo fence, low speed, no riding and
no parking zones. We also provide and that rider training.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, but that's not that's not because the greatest threat
to anybody, right, let's be honest about it. The greatest
threat to anybody is I'm standing. I don't care if
one of your dudes gets run over by a car,
because that's them getting hurt doing the thing that they love.
But the thing that's a risk to me is that
I'm just standing on the footpath and one of them,
you know, crashes into me. And you see this happen
all the time. They go down the footpath real fast.
(02:33):
How do you control that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, actually, our scooters go a lot slower than the
privately owned world.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Did you not just say twenty five ks an hour?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, but there's other there's areas where that'll.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Take me out so badly, man Like I would I
probably beconcussed after that, wouldn't I.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think the measures that we have and it's not
just through the app, it's not just the controls on
the scooters themselves, but we also host regular events in
the community.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Oh wow, who cares? This is what I want to know.
I love what you people does. You should go work
for Health New Zealand. You're better at communications than they are. Listen,
tell me how we deal with this. Right, So, if
the greatest threat to everybody else is the is people
on a hide scooter going really fast down the footpath,
(03:19):
how do we actually get that to stop? What can
we do here?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Oh, we welcome the recent government announcement that the scooters
will soon be allowed to operate in bike lanes. I
think it's a really positive step that creates dedicated and
separated but.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
They still Look, I've got a bike lane outside my house.
I've got a bike lane right there. They still come
down the footpath. That's not a solution.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, And one reason for that is at the moment,
legally they are actually not allowed to use that cycle lane.
So it's a it's a common sense change that the
government has recently announced to finally, after years allow these.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I guess, sir, but what do we do? You can
be honest with me if you don't have them, because
there aren't There aren't cycle ways everywhere, and we can't
ask these guys to go on the road because they're
going to get smashed by the cars. So how do
we actually make footpaths safer when you have a scooter
going down at fast? What do we do well?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I think the statistics that have been announced today in
relation to rider accidents, so it's the safety of the
right of themselves, and I think that's an important distinction
to pedestrian injuries. I think when we look at our
statistics and the instance that are reported to us as
a company, it's.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
A very very.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Low percentage of incidents involve a pedestrian, and we're really
proud of the work we do to educate.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And okay, I take care. You don't have an answer,
that's okay, you don't have to. Jackson, thank you, Jackson
Love Flamingo Scooter's co founder. So we've been talking that.
The reason I want to answer out of Jackson, which
I didn't get in the end, is because we've been
talking about this today because as I say, there is
a cycle way outside my house right the other day,
what two things? The other day, What happened is that
(05:01):
I pulled out of the drive and I looked up
the road, no no one coming, And I looked down
the road, no no one coming, and no one no
one coming up the cycle way, so I was good
to pull out. What I didn't see was there's a
scooter coming down the cycle way the wrong way. So
I nearly hit them. But I was okay with that
because I was like, well, you chose to go the
wrong way down the cycle way, and therefore I didn't
know that I was to look and you're the only
one that's going to get hurt because my car is
(05:22):
not going to get her. I don't really care whatever,
Like you made the decision. But it's a different equation,
isn't it When you just step out onto the footpath
and whoosh, there goes a cycle a little scooter really fast.
So I love the scooters and I think they're part
of our world now and we have to but I
just can't figure out how do we get these things
to be safe on them, because the solution, obviously is
(05:43):
that you say to them, look, if you're on a
cycle way, if you're on a footpath where people are walking,
you can go no faster than ten k's an hour
if there are people, which is a fine thing to say,
but I mean, these are kids, right, The majority of
people riding scooters nowadays, like twenty twenty five whatever. They
don't think. They just go whoo yeah fun. So you
can't really and you can't have policemen standing the game.
(06:03):
So fasked now you're so practically what is the solution?
And I don't know that there is one? And this
is what bothers me. And clearly there is a one,
because Jackson couldn't give us one. Anyway, Just hope that
these cads just go a bit slower sometimes. Anyway, I
see who
Speaker 2 (06:20):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
East scooters are becoming more risky. Apparently incidents have doubled
in the last five years. So acc data recorded more
than one two hundred injury claims in the last year,
which cost taxpayers fourteen and a half million dollars. And
let me tell you which city top the list. It's
christ Church, over four hundred claims, more than any other
city out there.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Jackson Love is one of the co founders of Flamingo Scooters. Hi, Jackson,
I hear that.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
How are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Very well? Thank you? What's going on? Why is christ
Church so bad? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, it's interesting, isn't it. I think as a key
we owned and operated company, safety is at the heart
of everything we do here at Flamingo. And interestingly, Flamingo
hasn't been down in christ Church for a number of years,
so as a market we'd obviously love to get back
into one day in the future and hopefully improve safety.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What do you think it is though? I would have
expected that it would actually be, but I don't know.
I just thought that a city like Wellington, which is
much more hilly, would have bigger problems with people losing
control on the downslope.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Church. Now, that is interesting I think it's really important
to understand that not all these scooters are the same.
So shared these scooters like Flamingo, they capped at twenty
five kilometers an hour, they've built in safety controls and
we monitor them twenty four to seven. But privately owned
these scooters, on the other hands, you often see them
wizzing down the footpath sort of speeds upwards of forty
(01:22):
fifty kilometers an hour, and there's not really any regulation
there at all. I've also heard in the past that
mope heads and other types of motorized scooters have often
been categorized in all together and included in that same ACTA.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I think, you know what, I'm going to come back
at you. I'm going to come back at you on
this Jackson. I actually think the people the people that
I see misbehaving on the scooters are the people on
hired scooters, not necessarily yours, but any hired scooters like yours.
I think it's the guys who own their own scooters
who are much more responsible because they're much more used
to scooting.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Interesting. Well, yeah, that's an interesting perspective. I think at
Flamingo we work really closely with our Council partners to
manage speed and riding behavior through a number of different measures.
That that includes geo fence, low speed, no riding and
no parking zones. We also provide and that rider training.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, but that's not that's not because the greatest threat
to anybody, right, let's be honest about it. The greatest
threat to anybody is I'm standing. I don't care if
one of your dudes gets run over by a car,
because that's them getting hurt doing the thing that they love.
But the thing that's a risk to me is that
I'm just standing on the footpath and one of them,
you know, crashes into me. And you see this happen
all the time. They go down the footpath real fast.
(02:33):
How do you control that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, actually, our scooters go a lot slower than the
privately owned world.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Did you not just say twenty five ks an hour?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, but there's other there's areas where that'll.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Take me out so badly, man Like I would I
probably beconcussed after that, wouldn't I.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think the measures that we have and it's not
just through the app, it's not just the controls on
the scooters themselves, but we also host regular events in
the community.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Oh wow, who cares? This is what I want to know.
I love what you people does. You should go work
for Health New Zealand. You're better at communications than they are. Listen,
tell me how we deal with this. Right, So, if
the greatest threat to everybody else is the is people
on a hide scooter going really fast down the footpath,
(03:19):
how do we actually get that to stop? What can
we do here?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Oh, we welcome the recent government announcement that the scooters
will soon be allowed to operate in bike lanes. I
think it's a really positive step that creates dedicated and
separated but.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
They still Look, I've got a bike lane outside my house.
I've got a bike lane right there. They still come
down the footpath. That's not a solution.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, And one reason for that is at the moment,
legally they are actually not allowed to use that cycle lane.
So it's a it's a common sense change that the
government has recently announced to finally, after years allow these.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I guess, sir, but what do we do? You can
be honest with me if you don't have them, because
there aren't There aren't cycle ways everywhere, and we can't
ask these guys to go on the road because they're
going to get smashed by the cars. So how do
we actually make footpaths safer when you have a scooter
going down at fast? What do we do well?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I think the statistics that have been announced today in
relation to rider accidents, so it's the safety of the
right of themselves, and I think that's an important distinction
to pedestrian injuries. I think when we look at our
statistics and the instance that are reported to us as
a company, it's.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
A very very.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Low percentage of incidents involve a pedestrian, and we're really
proud of the work we do to educate.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And okay, I take care. You don't have an answer,
that's okay, you don't have to. Jackson, thank you, Jackson
Love Flamingo Scooter's co founder. So we've been talking that.
The reason I want to answer out of Jackson, which
I didn't get in the end, is because we've been
talking about this today because as I say, there is
a cycle way outside my house right the other day,
what two things? The other day, What happened is that
(05:01):
I pulled out of the drive and I looked up
the road, no no one coming, And I looked down
the road, no no one coming, and no one no
one coming up the cycle way, so I was good
to pull out. What I didn't see was there's a
scooter coming down the cycle way the wrong way. So
I nearly hit them. But I was okay with that
because I was like, well, you chose to go the
wrong way down the cycle way, and therefore I didn't
know that I was to look and you're the only
one that's going to get hurt because my car is
(05:22):
not going to get her. I don't really care whatever,
Like you made the decision. But it's a different equation,
isn't it When you just step out onto the footpath
and whoosh, there goes a cycle a little scooter really fast.
So I love the scooters and I think they're part
of our world now and we have to but I
just can't figure out how do we get these things
to be safe on them, because the solution, obviously is
(05:43):
that you say to them, look, if you're on a
cycle way, if you're on a footpath where people are walking,
you can go no faster than ten k's an hour
if there are people, which is a fine thing to say,
but I mean, these are kids, right, The majority of
people riding scooters nowadays, like twenty twenty five whatever. They
don't think. They just go whoo yeah fun. So you
can't really and you can't have policemen standing the game.
(06:03):
So fasked now you're so practically what is the solution?
And I don't know that there is one? And this
is what bothers me. And clearly there is a one,
because Jackson couldn't give us one. Anyway, Just hope that
these cads just go a bit slower sometimes. Anyway, I
see who
Speaker 2 (06:20):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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