Is It Stupid For Pedestrians To Sue Citi Bike?
Image via AN Blog
Well, case by case basis. DNAinfo reports today on two different lawsuits against Citi Bike—both from pedestrians, oddly enough—one of them frivolous, one of them not. If, like Robert Orlick, you happen to be legally blind, have incurred a few minor injuries tripping over a docking station, and are just asking the city for $500 to cover medical costs and to consider changing the color of the docking stations to something more visually distinct (“like black,” Orlick says), then fine. That seems legit.
If, on the other hand, you just happened to trip on one and are now suing the city for $1 million, well that is… less clear cut. One might even say excessive. Mostly though, it’s just surprising that after all the turmoil over their rollout, the complaints about the docking stations as hard-to-miss eyesores, and their popularity with tourists who don’t know their way around city traffic, the first real problems here are just coming from pedestrians who trip over them in their own neighborhoods. Anyway, the program itself is insured and 3.5 million rides have gone without incident since it launched back in May, so seems like this should all be fine. Just uh, be careful where you walk. Or I don’t know, don’t be, and then see how much money you can squeeze out of the city’s coffers instead. Either one seems to work just fine.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
