Don't speed, swerve or ride illegally on a sidewalk in one of the new scooters from Superpedestrian — its "Pedestrian Defense" technology will forcibly slow you to a stop if you misbehave.

Why it matters: Safety concerns are holding cities back from deploying more e-scooters as alternatives to cars. Superpedestrian's new system could help snuff out dangerous moves by riders, potentially broadening e-scooter acceptance and making cities safer.

Driving the news: Superpedestrian, a company spun out of MIT in 2013 that runs shared e-scooter networks in 60 cities globally, just raised $125 million to deploy Pedestrian Defense, an advanced AI safety system.

• "It takes in data from a lot of different sensors, and it not only detects when somebody's riding on a sidewalk, it also can correct that behavior," Jamie Perkins, director of communications for Superpedestrian, tells Axios.
• It can also tell "when somebody is repeatedly aggressively swerving or hard-braking, or riding the wrong way on a one-way street," she said. "And we can slow the scooter down and stop it, just like on a sidewalk."
• First, a light on the handlebar will flash red.
• Then, if the rider doesn't shape up, Pedestrian Defense will start to reduce the vehicle's speed — eventually to a full (and safe) stop.
• The rider is notified through an app why they've stopped, "so they can move the scooter back out into the street and be on their way," Perkins says.

Superpedestrian — which operates its LINK e-scooter network...

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