Skip explains why it pulled scooters off the streets of San Francisco

Skip e-scooters are parked on King Street in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, March 19, 2019. They were harder to locate on Monday morning. Skip e-scooters are parked on King Street in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, March 19, 2019. They were harder to locate on Monday morning. Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Skip explains why it pulled scooters off the streets of San Francisco 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

San Francisco commuters depending on the scooter-share app Skip were out of luck Monday morning after the city's 800 rides skipped town.

An investigation was launched after an image from Washington, D.C. was re-tweeted more than 1,200 times. The photo — posted Thursday by a member of the Washington Post's social media team — a scooter on fire, leaving charring on a wall.

A scooter on fire in the District. pic.twitter.com/UUZZ2Fo8mP — Teddy Amenabar (@TeddyAmen) May 30, 2019

To get out in front of the issue, the company began pulling devices out of service in the D.C. Area.

We still have no reason to believe in a systemic fleet issue, but we are continuing our investigation. We have decided to hold our fleet deployment in the DC area this weekend until we can share our results with DDOT and collaborate with them on returning our fleet to service. — Skip (@SkipScooters) May 31, 2019

The company has continued to state that there is no indication of a system-wide problem with their scooters, but "out of an abundance of caution" the scooters were pulled from San Francisco as well.

Out of an abundance of caution and until we are able to share our complete investigation with regulators, we will not deploy in San Francisco. We expect our scooters to be back on the road in the next few days. Thanks for your patience and support. — Skip (@SkipScooters) June 3, 2019

The company, which was founded in San Francisco in 2017 by the creators of Boosted Boards, is one of two city sanctioned dockless scooter operators in San Francisco.

The Chronicle reports the scooters could return as early as Monday or Tuesday. Get The Chronicle's full story here.

In the meantime, the fallen scooter is being remembered with a real world meme.

There’s now a memorial for the Skip scooter fire yesterday.



(Photos and h/t go to @AbbyAttackerman) pic.twitter.com/Ff5hnKF3c2 — Teddy Amenabar (@TeddyAmen) May 31, 2019

Bill Disbrow is SFGATE's Director of Content. Email: wdisbrow@sfgate.com | Twitter: @bdisbrow