Lime scooters slash amount of vehicle trips throughout Auckland in the past two months

An Auckland councillor is not surprised at the Lime e-scooter phenomenon, with more than 100,000 people using the service in the first two months.

Chris Darby said he had never seen so many smiles on the faces he sees on Lime-loving scooter riders discovering a new freedom of movement.

His enthusiasm is shared by council's urban design champion Ludo Campbell-Reid: "They are such fun. People are thrilled to feel the wind in their hair."

They were commenting on the transportation sharing-system company's end of year report after rolling out the e-scooters in October.

It found 22 per cent of riders had replaced vehicle transportation with an electric Lime scooter on their last trip.

The statistic equates to 20,000 fewer vehicle trips on city roads in the past two months, the company said.

"When an Uber driver complained to me recently about losing city-centre business to Limes, my hunch that they are reducing drive-through traffic was confirmed.

"If private car travel and related parking pressures are also on the wane due to e-scooters, then that's another reason to celebrate," said Darby, who chairs the council's planning committee and supports measures to reduce car use in the central city.

In Auckland 56 per cent of riders reported commuting to and from work or university during their most recent Lime trip.

Hank Rowe launched Lime in New Zealand and said he was thrilled to see how people embraced the scooters.

"I have been amazed with the take-up, and how a full cross section of the community is relishing the opportunity to Lime in our great cities, from business people to commuters, university students to seniors," he said.

Campbell-Reid said the Lime figures showed the the explosive growth in demand for people moving cleanly and efficiently around the city.

But not everyone is a fan of Lime scooters.

As of December 9 there had been 408 e-scooter ACC claims, since the launch of Lime Scooters on October 14 - of these 251 were in Auckland and 141 in Christchurch.

Last month, Auckland project manager Michael Cannon was cycling home from work when he collided with a Lime scooter rider.

Cannon was knocked unconscious, he broke his hand and now he is calling for tighter regulations around where they can ride following the collision.

Meanwhile, a UK citizen lost a tooth and suffered a fractured neck and severe facial bruising after a Lime scooter crash.

Since her crash on Thursday last week, Amy Gianfrancesco believes safety precautions around Lime scooters needs to be updated.

"They should come with helmets with an extendible lead," she said.

"They should bring the speed of them down to 15km/h [manufacturers say the top speed of a Lime scooter is 24km/h].

"Drunk people are always going to do silly things anyway but my understanding was that these Limes weren't left around the city for people to use after hours when they've been drinking a lot."

Darby said after some initial exuberance discovering Lime, with a small handful of riders going a bit fast on footpaths and passing too close to pedestrians, rider behaviour appeared to be self-correcting as people become more familiar with the scooters and allowing more room when passing pedestrians.

The majority of users know their capabilities and ride Limes accordingly. The more that e-scooters become another everyday transport option, the more responsibly they'll be used, he said.

"The suggestion that helmet wearing should be compulsory for e-scooter riders is more emotions based than evidence based.

"Regulators should only act on what has proven to be effective, e.g. the lowest level of helmet wearing and highest level of cycling is found in the Netherlands, but with a corresponding lowest level of fatalities per kilometres travelled by bicycle.

"I'm for celebrating, not knee-jerk regulating."