Parents of Ofo’s bicycle user sue company for negligence after tragic Shanghai accident

Beijing Bikelock Technology Co., the biggest among the Chinese bicycle-sharing services that are taking the country by storm, is being sued for negligence by the parents of a child who died in an accident riding its Ofo bicycles, in the first suit of its kind in the world’s largest ride-sharing market.

The suit emanated from a March 26 accident in Shanghai, where a coach struck an 11-year-old child on an Ofo bicycle, riding against traffic while turning a corner. The fourth-grade child, who was too young to gain access to an Ofo account on smartphone, had cracked open the mechanical padlock on the bicycle to ride it.

Shanghai’s police had concluded that the primary responsibility in the accident was with the child, as traffic law forbids children under the age of 12 to take their bicycles on to public roads, and the child was riding illegally against oncoming traffic. The coach driver was deemed to be responsible on a secondary count, as he neglected to confirm safe passage while making a turn, according to the police.

The parents of the deceased child sued, claiming that the locks installed on Ofo’s bicycles were defective, allowing the underage child to gain access even without an Ofo account, according to the plaintiff’s attorney. They sued for 8.78 million yuan (US$1.3 million) in damages, and demanded that Ofo replaces all of their mechanical locks with safer devices.