Lime bans nearly 1,000 DC accounts in safety crackdown

Lime said Wednesday it banned nearly 1,000 user accounts in the District in just under four weeks for reckless riding and suspected underage use.

The crackdown affects a common last-mile option for DC residents and commuters. A company spokesperson said “several thousand” DC accounts have been banned in 2026 alone.

Lime said the recent bans are part of its $17 million “Keeping DC Moving” plan and that staff are reviewing every DC account for suspicious activity. The company said riders who make good-faith mistakes receive warnings, while suspected underage riders, or adults who let someone under 18 use an account, can face fines and bans.

District law requires riders to be at least 18 to rent and ride e-scooters and e-bikes. Erika Duthely, Lime’s regional head of government relations, said preventing underage riding is the company’s top priority and that residents can report suspicious riding for review.

“The City has been a great partner in prioritizing this issue and working with us to address it comprehensively,” Duthely said in a statement.

Lime said DC riders must take a selfie before unlocking a vehicle so the company can run a biometric age check, a system that uses artificial intelligence to estimate age. The company said it launched the feature in the spring and has blocked thousands of rides since then.

Technology experts questioned how reliable those checks can be. Gabriel Robins, a computer science professor at the University of Virginia, said visual age estimates can be fooled with simple changes in appearance.

“It could be as simple as a fake moustache,” Robins said. “They can paint the moustache on their upper lip — or,” holding a brush, “they take an object like this, and all of a sudden I’ve got a moustache, as far as the AI system is concerned.”

Lime said it is also using scooter sensors to detect prohibited actions such as burnouts, jumps and skidding. The company said an onboard camera system identifies sidewalk riding, which is barred in parts of DC, and repeated violations can lead to fines, suspensions or removal from the platform.

Vir Virander Phoha, a professor at Syracuse University’s department of electrical engineering and computer science, said the data collected can extend well beyond location. “They have all types of data about you — whether you’re tilting, whether your head is moving, your arms are moving. The whole skeletal structure they can rebuild from this sensor data,” he said.

Residents and riders offered mixed reactions. Austin said Lime is a private business and can set its own rules. Anna said she is “generally not pro being tracked” and argued that non-location tracking should be disclosed in a banner or pop-up before a ride begins.

Marvin, interviewed while riding a Lime bike, said he did not know Lime tracked riding data and questioned whether it was accurate enough to justify bans. “I don’t even feel like it’s a hundred percent accurate,” he said, “because even the GPS on the bikes — it’s in one spot, but it’s in a whole other spot.”

Lime said users who believe they were wrongly banned can appeal. The company has not said how many of the nearly 1,000 recently banned DC accounts belonged to underage riders.