The coming Segway slaughter

[dougo]

Via The Weekly Wunderland News (the house organ of Looney Labs Games) and their Sales Baron Marlene Bruce's journal, I found out that you can rent a Segway scooter Human Transporter in Vancouver (and a few other places). This seems like a great idea, considering this quote:

Our research suggests that less than 1% of the population would CONSIDER purchasing a Segway whereas 93% suggested that they would like to try one.

I followed a link to a Wired article that points out a number of problems Segway has run into:

The vehicle weighs more than 80 pounds and can travel maybe 11 miles on a charge, depending on terrain.

Several [postal] workers praised the scooter for relieving their aching feet, but another reported that the battery lasted anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours - forcing carriers to circle back to their trucks several times a day to swap batteries.

My teacher, Morgan Smith, scoffs when I offer that some people think the device is too heavy to be practical. While the machine's Power Assist mode helps a user muscle it up a flight of stairs, lifting is required to get it in and out of a car. "It's easy," Smith chirps. "I grab one side and get a friend to lift the other."

By the end of last year, 32 states and the District of Columbia had changed their laws to accommodate the Segway, though Toohey acknowledges that "in some states there's a speed limit of 8 miles per hour," roughly twice the rate of a fast walker. Most of the remaining 18 states either don't need to change their laws or held no legislative session in 2002.

[Emphasis mine-- do states really go whole years without considering any law changes?!]

Smith watched Segway officials stage accidents for legislators supposedly showing that a run-in between a Segway and a human would be harmless. "But they were going much slower than the Segway can go, and they were anticipated - the rider slowed down first." What happens, he asks, if a child darts in front of one? He testified before committees in the state House and Senate, where he implored lawmakers to explore this issue, to no avail. "You could see it: These legislators would get on the thing and they were mesmerized," Smith says.

San Francisco banned the Segway from its sidewalks, in no small part because of the efforts of a noisy citizen's group that called on officials to stop the coming "Segway slaughter."

I still want one (if the price ever goes down enough or my net worth goes up enough), but it's interesting to see some critical press that's less superficial than the original hype and the ensuing backlash, which didn't go much further than jokes on the late night talk shows.

Comments

[perci.livejournal.com]

I think that as a public service, the government should issue Segways to all the people who amble down the sidewalk at like a quarter of a mile per hour, weaving randomly from side to side so you can't even walk around them. (And I don't mean drunks; I mean half the pedestrians in the universe.) Get those people moving at a reasonable pace and in a straight line so it's possible for the rest of us to walk somewhere without allowing 15 minutes per city block.