Where e-Scooters Go to Die: 100 of Them Fished from River in Lyon

In cities across the world, e-scooters have become more of a scourge than a blessing. Although it could have been the perfect last mile solution in cities facing congestion problems, this type of transportation machine is a real nightmare, forcing authorities to come up with extra legislation to govern their use, and causing headaches for drivers and pedestrians.

Poor tracking of the scooters causes them to be parked at random, stolen or simply ditched in rivers, as a French environmental group found out last weekend.

In the city of Lyon, the Rhône river seems to be infected by e-scooters. During a clean-up operation on Sunday, Euronews reports, a group called Odysseus 3.1 managed in just a few hours to fish 109 scooters out of the river, and that on a distance of only 300 meters.

Ditching e-scooters in the water is common practice, but it is also a very bad idea, as the lithium-ion batteries they use for power could in time leak and cause serious environmental issues.

Following their findings, Odysseus 3.1 asked companies operating mobility devices in the city to come up with better ideas to prevent such things from occurring. Also, the scooters recovered over the weekend will be handed back to their owners, but it’s unclear what they will do with them.

The e-scooter sharing industry is still in its infancy, but it seems to have gotten off the wrong foot already. It’s unclear how many e-scooters are lost by operators each day, but their number is probably extremely high, and things will likely go even worse.