143: Day 4: Lime Bikes and Broken Legs

Jim Waterson (London Centric) revealed the rash of broken legs across London caused by heavy Lime electric bikes falling on their own riders, and asks: who is in charge of keeping commuters safe?

For six days Page 94 is covering the extraordinary stories of the investigative journalists shortlisted for this year’s Paul Foot Award, before the winner’s announcement next week. 

Episode Transcript

Maisie (00:00):
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast

Andy (00:03):
Hello and welcome to the miniseries.
We are now in the second half ofthe mini series of the shortlists
for this year's Paul Foot Award.
Let's find out with no further muckingabout who today's shortlist is.

Jim Waterson (00:16):
my name's Jim Watson and I am the editor of London Centric,
a new London news publication.

Andy (00:22):
And what is the Paul Foot Award
shortlisted story that you've
written this
year?

Jim Waterson (00:27):
the story is all about line bikes, which if you live in London or.
Another major city in the uk you mightknow as those ubiquitous, green rent by
the minute, e-bikes that are everywhere.
And there's been a lot of moansabout the fact that they can block
pavements and things like that.
But the thing that I've really focusedon is the, safety element and the
sort of power of a company that justwent, okay, we are gonna just flood

(00:50):
a market with a load of devices thatare basically unregulated and people
will rent them and not know whether.
A bit is going to fall off the bike,whether when they crash at high speed,
the design is even suitable for fallingon top of them and perhaps injuring them.
And it all started 'cause one person said.

(01:10):
I've broken a leg and then asecond reader got in touch to
say it's also broken my leg.
And then by the time a thirdand a fourth got in touch,
it's like there's a story here.
And so really it's as much about howI'm trying to do proper local journalism
where you just listen to what the publicare telling you and you go and find
out why something's happening on theground in the city that they live in.

Andy (01:29):
So this is Reader generated.
This is your readers of LondonCentric getting in touch.

Jim Waterson (01:33):
This is readers of London Centric getting in touch.
And at first I, I was a bit suspicious.
I wasn't sure I used the things,and I wanted to know why this was.
And I started phoning upconsultants who work in trauma
wards across London and they said.
It's off the scale.
We are just getting loads and loads ofpeople coming in, flying off these bikes.
And the, obviously injuries happen in anyform of transport, but the thing that's

(01:56):
quite notable with this is that they saidtwo things that people come off from.
One, the bikes have a design which theybelieve might be a flaw, which means that
when they fall on top of you, it basicallyacts like a pivot point and smashes your
leg against the concrete and shatters it

Andy (02:10):
Yeah.

Jim Waterson (02:10):
in a way that's.
heavy.
They're really heavy

Andy (02:14):
and the battery's often a heavy bit.
They're all

Jim Waterson (02:15):
combined with one

Andy (02:16):
stalk.
And if it lands, thenyour leg gets in the way.

Jim Waterson (02:20):
And the other one was that when bits fall off them.
They don't immediatelyget taken outta service.
So and it's all part of this, who ownsthe public realm in a city like London?
Who's in charge and who gets toset the rules because it isn't in
this case, transport for London.
It isn't the mayor, it isn't the boroughs.
It's a private Californiancompany who said, look.
We're gonna change theway that London operates.

(02:42):
We're gonna flood thestreets of these things.
and there was no oversight on thedesign or their safety or maintenance.
And that just really interested mebecause who's in control when no
one's in charge, no one's in charge,no one's really got the ability to
limit these things on safety grounds.

Andy (02:55):
And we should say, the details are incredibly grim.
People nearly losing legs, peoplenearly severing their femoral
artery, which can kill you easily.
is not a simple fracturethat we're dealing with.
These are horrible incidents.
These people are, cyclingin daytime and sober.

Jim Waterson (03:09):
they're described as motorcycle style incidents.
some London surgeons nowrefer to it as line bike leg.
They just get so many of them comingin that their wards are full of them.
And one particular rider made thepoint to me that it's easy to dismiss
this in some ways, but they describedit as 'a transfer of wealth from the
NHS to a Californian tech company.'
That the, The safety of the bike isn'tup to the standards, which then means

(03:35):
that the NHS has to pick up the bill offixing these people's legs back together.
And the irony is, and thisis a really important part.
Almost everyone I spoke toreally likes the product.

Andy (03:44):
Right?

Jim Waterson (03:45):
This is not,

Andy (03:46):
they shouldn't,

Jim Waterson (03:47):
no, I'm, a regular line bike rider myself.
The problem is that no one'sreally overseeing these things.
It's a bit like the same way that Uber,about 10, 15 years ago, turned up in the
UK cities and just went, we are goingto, change the way the city operates.
And, governments will need to catch upwith how we are doing our unregulated
approach to, a new form of transport.

(04:08):
Lime have pretty much done the same thing.
They've gone, we are just goingto flood a major capital city with
these bikes and then the sort ofeffects will work out afterwards.

Andy (04:17):
look, maybe this is a naive question, But if I wanted to set up a
razor blade, pogo stick transportation
company around London, are you sayingno one would stop me with a dangerous
product that can do people real harm?

Jim Waterson (04:31):
there'd be consumer protection laws in general, but,
and you might have the abilityto sue the, operator of your
razor blade, po stick operator.
but the idea that it's not coveredby existing regulatory systems.
you can't just start a, a rival blackcab operator or something like that.
Yeah.
But there's not much to stop you movinginto the e-bike market at the moment.

(04:55):
So it's just a case of theregulation hasn't kept up with
the reality on the ground.
And there's both the sort ofclutter around London element
and I think, to be honest, moreimportantly, the safety element.

Andy (05:05):
so
Consumers are clearly not being protected.

Jim Waterson (05:08):
There's a growing number of lawsuits about this.
people are getting payouts from Lyme.

Andy (05:13):
but if
I've broken my, leg, I don'twanna have to do the suing myself.
I want someone, I want what's providedto be at least reasonably safe.
We all know that accidents

Jim Waterson (05:21):
And

Andy (05:21):
cycling in London is sometimes not for the faint

Jim Waterson (05:24):
Fainthearted.

Andy (05:25):
But I'd like the thing that's
injuring
me to be
a
car rather than
my own hired bike.

Jim Waterson (05:30):
this is the final bit really.
I took out a train mechanic, on thestreets of London and we hired 50 line
bikes and we found about, 10 to 12% were.
so dangerous that he'd want themtaken off the street immediately.
And it was interesting 'cause wetalked to people riding them around.
They said, yeah, thatfits with my experience.
quite often these bits fall off quiteoften A kid has knocked them out.

(05:50):
argument from the operatoris, what can we do?
People are gonna kick thehell outta these things.
And the argument from the lawyersand the victims is, you've basically
sold me a defective product thatisn't safe when I'm riding around.

Andy (06:02):
Okay.

Jim Waterson (06:02):
And I think that's, the interesting thing to unpick here,
like what's the level of risk and ifthere is gonna be a risk, what I feel
I've done with this story is at leastalert people to it and tell them to.
Give a bike a good check over beforethey ride off at 15 miles an hour.

Andy (06:16):
we should say the bikes weigh about 39 kilos and they're

Jim Waterson (06:19):
They're very heavy

Andy (06:20):
the

Jim Waterson (06:20):
four

Andy (06:20):
of what a normal bike weighs.

Jim Waterson (06:21):
Yeah,

Andy (06:22):
the irony is these were introduced partly because
e
scooters, which are popular in lotsof European cities, are not legal
on
the road or on the pavement in the uk.
So it was a perfect opportunity to say,here's some personal transportation.
Because e scooters are so dangerous.

Jim Waterson (06:36):
like half of all Londoners take a line bike.
it's basically a defacto newform of transport, which is
probably good.
but people just need toknow what the risks are.
Yeah.

Andy (06:46):
You're being very cautious and, as, you should be in reporting
this, I guess your next step,once you'd found the readers.
And the trauma, surgeonswas to contact Lyme.
And what did they saywhen you got in touch?

Jim Waterson (06:58):
I think one of my favorite things with it, as a publication, as a
startup publication was that initiallythey asked if I was a, print weekly,
publication and I got a local FOB off,and by the end it was the global head of
comms who was responding to my questions.
So I think they realized that this wasactually gonna be a bit of a problem
for them as the stories progressedand as they got more and more pickup.

(07:19):
seen all of the national papers followthis up and it's become a bit of
a talking point around, the bikes.
that sort of shows the benefit of actuallyhaving someone on the ground who is able
to dedicate a few days at a time to eachof these stories in this series going
around, checking things out and makingsure that, there's actual reporting done
and not just repeating the press release.
It's 'cause so much localjournalism online and all of these

(07:42):
things is, just basically copyingand pasting the press release.
At best, maybe adding in a commentfrom an irate person on Twitter.
there's no one just kicking,literally kicking the tiles in this
case and seeing what's going on.

Andy (07:55):
can I just check, what did they say to you when you asked them about
this
spate of leg smashingthat's been going on?

Jim Waterson (08:01):
in almost all cases people don't get their legs
smashed, which is definitely true.
But I think the people who are in aand e for weeks at a time, who now have
multiple metal pins holding their legstogether, who spend an hour on the floor
in, a busy London street having come off,seemingly for no particular reason or
in one particular video I've seen havingmultiple bones sticking out of their leg.

(08:23):
I literally couldn't publish that oneeven though it was particularly shocking.
these people say, I just want them toget their act together basically, and
they need to actually put more moneyback into maintenance and not going
to their investors back in the States.

Andy (08:36):
What about their tires?

Jim Waterson (08:37):
And their tires.
They also, shifted from a Germanmodel to a, Chinese model.
the implication being that they werein some way moving to a cheaper model,
whether or not that's actually, moredangerous or not is something lime
of pushback strongly on, but there'sdefinitely a thing that they are
like all tech companies going forgrowth at all costs and some of the

(08:58):
cost of that growth at all costs iscoming onto the British taxpayer who's
paying to piece people back together.
And also the poor unfortunates who arewandering around with a bit of a hobble.
Now,

Andy (09:07):
I know that you've reported that Lyme do pay for.
injuries, they do payouts,but the stipulations are
quite strict, aren't they?
they?
say, you need to be disabled reallythoroughly, including, for example.
Complete loss of one kidney.

Jim Waterson (09:21):
And I don't quite know how you'd manage to lose a
kidney in one of these accidents.
That would be, very impressive.
the end effect basically is,unless you really smash yourself
up permanently, you're not reallyinsured on one of these things.
And that's why people are having to turnto lawyers to try and get payouts for the
loss of earnings for the time off work.
I've spoken to people whoare still unable to walk.

(09:41):
A couple of years later.
Couple years later.
Yeah.
it's really permanentlymessed up their life.
Obviously you can injure yourself inall manner of ways, and as something
gets more popular, the, there'sgonna be a risk this happening.
But I just think that peopleneed to be aware of what product
they're using and the attitudes ofthe company that are running it.

Andy (10:04):
I wanna ask a couple of questions about London centric, because
this is.
the, I
think newest of the outletsshortlisted for the awards this year.
It's, this is youroutfit that you set up.
can you just tell us a bit about the.
genesis
of London centric 'cause I thinkit's really interesting about
how journalism is changing.
and,

Jim Waterson (10:22):
Yeah.
So I used to be the mediaeditor of The Guardian.
I covered a lot of the declining,terrible state of the local press
in the uk and eventually I went, Iprobably ought to do something about it.
I, left my job at The Guardian.
basically bought a laptop and went right.
How do we do local news then?
And what I decided to focus onwas a handful of things, really

(10:44):
in depth power, accountability,interesting things not being boring,
and definitely not reproducing pressreleases just for the hell of it.
So where is your average localnews website's just covered in ads?
it's chasing clicks.
Your reporters are being toldto do eight stories a day.
Half of them are about something unrelatedthat they've seen on Twitter or the
middle aisle or oldie or whatever.

Andy (11:04):
Yeah.

Jim Waterson (11:05):
London centric promises, just a handful of in-depth things,
covered really well by someone whoactually knows how to do journalism.
and crucially that works becausepeople are willing to pay for it.
Some of the stuff is free,some of it you got to pay for.
I try not to be dull.
I try to make it interesting.
And the crucial thing is thatthousands of people have gone,

(11:25):
okay, we really like the pitch.
We really like what you're producing,

Andy (11:28):
Yeah.

Jim Waterson (11:28):
and we'll pay to read it.
And that gives me the freedom and abilityto actually go in depth, to not worry
about doing that clickbait headline thatclogs up your social feed to do complete
rubbish that the council's putting out.
And to hold people like Sade Khan toaccount, and yeah, there's definitely a
touch of the private eye attitude in termsof digging into the financials for people,
not just accepting the press release line.

(11:51):
and trying to Piece together,the people I've already had my
fair number of legal threats.
It is terrifying.
It is slightly terrifying to beoperating essentially as a sole operator.
I've got one reporter working withme now, but I am the editor, chief
reporter, chief content officer, thechief marketing officer, the legal
representative, the social mediamanager, everything rolled into one.

(12:13):
How are

Andy (12:14):
dealing with these legal threats when they

Jim Waterson (12:15):
in?
So you answer

Andy (12:17):
as the lawyer, the in-house lawyer,

Jim Waterson (12:19):
the, old job of the pa picking up the phone and
pretending to be someone else?
No, you just have to deal with them.
did pay one lawyer with a veryexpensive lunch, an old legal friend
to give some advice and I've nowput things on a more formal footing.
'cause I think that's a bit sensible.

Andy (12:33):
Yeah.

Jim Waterson (12:33):
but I think it shows two things.
One, it is possible.
Running an absolute bare bones operationto do proper journalism, that not
everything is an end of days raceto the bottom, and that people will
support things that they believe in.
, I also think it's enormously stressful andoverwhelming at the same time, and that
I do slightly miss the days where a wholeoffice of learned colleagues could guide

(12:54):
me through various proceeds, take thingsoff my plate and help, get a story out.

Andy (13:00):
as the chief reporter of
London Centric, Jim Waterton, wouldyou like to thank your editor,

Jim Waterson (13:05):
Jim Water, for all the support he's given you?
I think that, yeah, I think that'llbe, I think that would have to be
the, the acceptance speech wheninevitably this, story wins the award.
No, I, there's some incredibly strongentries here and, without sounding too
cheesy, I'm slightly overwhelmed to evenbe in the same category with a publication

(13:25):
that I launched only seven months ago,which is still run on, a shoestring.
Doesn't quite.
Describe it.
It's, it's, we're justabout holding it together.

Andy (13:35):
it's a terrific story.
I can't wait to find out whathappens next with Lime as well.
And I'll be bringing my own bikeinto the center of town from now on.
Thank you very much, Jim.

Jim Waterson (13:44):
Thank you.

Andy (13:45):
Thanks to Jim.
Do cycle safely and we'll seeyou tomorrow for episode five.