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Segway Banned In San Francisco
bhsurfer writes "The city of San Francisco has banned the Segway [CNN.com] from it's sidewalks before they've even arrived. Apparently Santa Cruz, Oakland and San Mateo are considering a ban as well. What a bunch of spoilsports...or are they? Any thoughts on this?" According to the article, hiring high-powered lobbyists may have backfired. but the city claims safety concerns are behind the decision.
before they have any testing or real user experience on which to base their decisions.
I've never lived in any of the cities in question, but I know in Honolulu that tourists can rent mopeds, and they drive them on sidewalks everywhere. I would much rather see them on Segways. It might even keep them out of the roads, too.
Segway, cool toy, but I just don't see what I would do with it. I can already go on my skateboard pretty damn fast. If I need to go faster I have a bike. If faster than that, my truck. Otherwise I'm walking. I don't get where it fits in, other than some lazy asses and maybe a heavy duty one for delivering mail along the boardwalk.
I'm not even sure that my kid thinks they're cool. I'll ask when I get home.
Otherwise they are full of bullshit. One of the reasons they gave for banning it was that it weighs 70 pounds and goes 12 mph, meaning the device could cause injury to a pedestrian.
The article mainly states that segways on crowded streets going three times the speed of a pedestrian are probably dangerous. If you have been to SF then you would be worried about some overweight sysadmin putting up California street on one of these as I could only imagine and out of control segway going down that..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
The first (in fact only) time I've ever seen a Segway was on the streets of San Francisco. I saw a Postal employee riding down the sidewalk with his USPS-branded saddlebags on the sides. I wonder if they have had bad experiences with Segway on their streets...
I thought one of the main thing about Segway is that it was supposed to be sooooo intuitive like walking? what's up with the multi-hour training?
besides that - does multi-hour mean 2 hours? or 5 hours? Worse yet - Non of the "mandated this many hours courses" I have ever attended lasted for the specific number of hourse.
Take, for example, in NY before you get a license you need a 5 hour (or somesuch) course. Not that I am complaining (that much) but the course ended after about three at a "DMV approved course center." - I say this because if the Segway was not as intuitive as they gloat, and a lenghty safty course was really necessary, then I'd fear of walking from now on - While bad drivers for the most part run into other cars, bad segway charioteers will mostly run into pedestrians.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Think of it this way: in ten years time, what will have more fatalities per machine on the road, the Segway or the car?
Judging from everything I've read about the Segway, it'll be the car, of course. So why don't they ban cars in San Francisco, too? Because use of cars is too widespread, and the public would be outraged if you tried to take them away.
If the Segway's all the hype suggests, then maybe in years hence the new machine will become as entrenched in daily life as the car (...assuming San Fran doesn't become a national trendsetter on the issue, and kill the Segway before it's given a chance). Until then you can expect this sort of thing. Just imagine how many people are going to worry about the first supersonic turbo-boostered flying rocket cars, you know?
youre not supposed to ride bikes on sidewalks! youre supposed to ride them in the street!
as for the segway, i think they should wait for it to be a problem before wasting their time banning it....i mean, how many of these things did they anticipate being on the sidewalks anyway?
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
Sidewalks (ok, I can speak USA) are for walking. As a bicycle rider I sometimes ride there if the road is untenable. People wander about a lot. They even dart from left to right in a random fashion. This is their right, if you ask me. And I go to great lengths to make sure I avoid them - they have the rights, not me. A Segway occupies much the same area as a bicycle (it's a bit shorter) but I do not believe it would be as good at avoiding people (it can't lean, though it turns very well). I agree with San Francisco. Keep the sidewalks free for pedestrians - SF is one of the few cities where people actually still walk - let's not threaten their sanctuary!
"Cats like plain crisps"
The ones being sold to the public have an 8 mph limiting key. The industrial ones had a top speed of 15 mph but aren't meant for streets. The skate boarders and bicycles go faster than that on sidewalks. The are a potential hazard but so are many legal devices.
Bicycles can't be on the sidewalks, why should segways be an exceptions. It's like a bicycle for lazy yuppies, and I'd pretty annoyed if one of those started whizzing near me on San Francisco streets and I'd have to dodge out of it's way. However, I would be equally annoyed to waste my weekend peeling the remains of a segway rider off my car's grill. I guess people will have to learn courtesy.
The Segways should have to adhere to the same rules that bikes do. Bikes aren't allowed on the sidewalk either. They have to follow many of the laws that cars do. This includes riding in the street, going with the flow of traffic. So, why can't the Segways use the bike lane (or curb area) too?
I don't understand how the Segway, which weighs 69lbs can be safer than a skateboard, or rollerblades. I think that taking the laissez-faire attitude you propose might be difficult in a litigious culture. What if someone really gets hurt by a careless Segway user? Who pays? The temptation might be to sue the richest entity involved, namely the city which is responsible for the sidewalk. This way, the city can say that they did what they could to prevent the problem.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
The Segway might be safer for the rider than a skateboard et. al., but it sure as shit isn't safer for the other people on the sidewalk. It's an extra 70lbs -- on top of who knows how much tofu- and sprout-fed mealy Californian -- moving at up to 15mph. Given how godawfully bad San Francisco drivers are, I shudder to think how many pedestrians would get plowed over by yuppie asshats with their new $8,000 toy.
I have no problem with keeping these things off our sidewalks, for the same reasons that I have no problem with bicycles being confined to the street.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Pulled from the article on CNN...
Critics say the Segway is a safety hazard on sidewalks because it weighs 69 pounds and travels at up to 12.5 mph
12mph is a little different from the 40mph you were throwing around.
Here's a better column about the whole debate from the San Francisco Chronicle. Basically, you have a bunch of uptight people over there, over a technology that hasn't even been used by the public yet. Fortunately, other cities, like Sacramento, are waiting to see whether there are any problems caused first, before acting.
"we aren't blocking traffic, we are traffic"
how long before segway riders organize take-back-the-sidewalks rides?
annmariabell.com
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
Actually, a lot of cities have banned use of skateboards, skates (quads and inlines), bicicles, and other devices on sidewalks. I, for one, am thankful for that. I shouldn't have to worry about dodging a skater who isn't paying attention to what he's doing.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
i use a segway ht to go 7+ miles per day, i given up a car, saved over $10,000 and i've even lost 10lbs with my extra time that i have each day to do more things like (exercise) as opposed to sitting in traffic.
you can read about it here on my personal journal of owning a segway ht:
http://www.bookofseg.com
today i hit 100 miles, it took about 14 days of commuting to hit that, i didn't count other trips or previous commute trips so i could keep careful logs. for the first 100 miles or so, i personally saved about $582.00+ by using a segway ht, gave up a car and lost 10lbs. some things weren't quantifiable, results may vary for others.
http://www.bookofseg.com/100miles/
if you would like to chat about it, lemme know-- i'd love to!
cheers,
pt
I have.. and as strange as it sounds, it is NOT LIKE A VEHICLE. It is an extension of your body. If you hit any obstacle, it automatically stops, and if pressure continues it goes into reverse. It is WAY cool, and I would think a running individual would be more dangerous.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Ummm, my understanding is that the standard Segway goes 12 MPH max.
Is 30 MPH a number you have a reference for?
Bill Gates weighs 70 pounds and only goes 10 mph, and just look at all the damage he has caused!
I believe that is the military Segway... approved use by licensed personnel only.
Going 40 MPH on a sidewalk, in a Segway, would be like pedestrian pinball.
~D:
I don't understand how the Segway, which weighs 69lbs can be safer than a skateboard, or rollerblades
Um, maybe because it has brakes?
Just junk food for thought...
"New Hampshire-based Segway hired lobbying firms but has made no contributions to any public officials or candidates, said Matt Dailida, the company's director of state government affairs."
The problem apprarently was that Segway, LLC. failed to sufficiently bribe California city officials. Now they're going to have to dig deeper into those pockets to make up for the hurt feelings of city officials and overcome the entrenched pedestrian rights groups.
'Embedded Linux on Segway: IT runs Linux!'... With a full SNMP MIB stack for monitoring your battery life from NetSaint (or whatever they're called now)... Maybe a webcam on the front and a copy of apache so that you can 'journal' your travels...
-Steve
My intelligence insults itself.
Bleh, fucking lame ass government stifling innovation because of imagined phantoms.
More likely, until they figure out the most lucrative way to tax them.
In California, officials in Santa Cruz, Oakland and San Mateo are still waiting on additional payoffs, and are wary after the much publicized "payoff check is in the mail" campaign failed in San Francisco.
One official is quoted as saying, "Bring cash."
-- Dan
The postal carriers are ditching it also (and others who were expected to use it, like policeman, security, etc). A quote from a postal worker in this week's Business Week was "You can't keep warm if you're not walking. You end up frozen like popsicle on a stick." Not a ringing endorsement for those states that are chilly 9 months of the year.
Yes, San Francisco banned this device. We have some very liberal board of supervisors running the city government here that defined the word 'bleeding heart.' Granted, some of the reasons for the ban aren't too bad, but some of them are very big brother.
The problem is that everyone is worried that the elderly walking down the sidewalk would be injured by one of these things.
There is also the whole pro-walking thing which lobbied pretty hard against it. They believe this device would cause everyone to get fat.
The price of the device didn't help its case either. Being a liberal city, a $4000 device is seen as a rich man's toy and rich men should be spending their money on social problems such as the homeless problem, not toys. This viewpoint is pretty common here unfortunately.
Bikes have been banned for quite some time on the sidewalk and for anyone who has biked down Market St. knows, it isn't particularly safe to be in the road either.
Rollerblades have also been banned on the sidewalk for some time. I've seen people try to go down the road on them and it isn't pretty given the general quality of the roads themselves.
Powered scooters are getting more and more common. They seem the safest of any one-person mode of transport simply because they can keep up with traffic. They are obviously banned on sidewalks, but have no real problems with the street from what I've seen.
Powered wheelchairs however have not been banned even though they seem to cause a whole lot more injury than anything else. That would hurt the disabled however, so it isn't even considered.
On the other hand, you have to realize that the sidewalks are litterly *packed* with people in many parts of the city. The segway would have caused problems simply because it is impossible to walk without bumping into someone.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
youre not supposed to ride bikes on sidewalks!
When I ride my bike in a downtown area where there are lots of cars parked on the side of the street, I get on the sidewalk and ride slowly.
The reason is that I can't rely on the drivers watching before they slam open a car door. Technically I'm not supposed to do it but I've had conversations with cops about it and they mostly agree that I'm better off on the sidewalk as long as I'm going slow. Same will probably be true for segway.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Hey asshole, here's a tidbit for you: we here in San Francisco don't give a flying handshake if lackwits from Ames, Iowa think Segways are safe. Respect the Federal system, and butt the fuck out.
This measure wasn't something the big, bad government imposed upon us. Local pedestrian and bicycle organizations got together to make sure that the state's insipid redefinition of "pedestrian" to include people on Segways wouldn't fly in this city.
And give you a hefty $70 fine. Bikes are treated as motorcycles from a law enforcment standpoint. They must abide by all the same laws. No sidewalks, no running red lights, must use turn signals etc. The reason you see so many people ON sidewalks with bikes is because police are typically lax on chasing them down in a lot of areas. But in high pedestrian traffic areas you will see lots of "bike cops" making sure bikers are on the road where they belong.
California used to think it was ok enough:
Old Press Release
Personally, I don't think they should ban them, but instead regulate their usage and make owners responsible for their use just like they do with everything else.
Human powered top speed: 80.6 mph
and after some quick calculations
60/((9.7*16)/60)
Human top speed on foot: 23 mph
12.5 mph doesn't seem so dangerous to me, it is about 3 times faster than I walk comfortably, and slightly faster than when i jog.
There used to be a time when Britain was THE leading industrial country. But people got comfortable with that, old industrial interests got entrenched, and as a result they had laws in the end of the 19th century that prohibited automobiles from driving faster than 4mph, and a pedestrian with a red flag had to walk in front of every vehicle. Now it doesn't take too much thinking to see that a country that passes such laws can never last as a leading technological power.
I can just see the US going down the same road with its overregulation of everything.
When men used to be men
It has different max-speeds (user choosen) which should allow it to drive in sidewalks (8mph sidewalk operation)
IMO banning all innovation for security sake isn't the way to go, REGULATING is.
Maneuvering method: dynamic stabilization--five solid-state, angular-rate-sensing gyroscopes and twin-tilt sensors monitor balance 100 times per second to help the HT compensate for the difference between the rider's body movements, varying terrain, and the direction of gravity
Motors: two (one per wheel) brushless, independent, 2-horsepower DC servo motors and helical gearboxes (24:1 gear ratio); this combination allows motors to spin at a higher, more efficient speed and provides smooth, quiet propulsion
Chassis: aluminum; withstands 7 tons of force
Carrying capacity: 250-pound user
Wheels: glass-reinforced thermoplastic
Tires: tubeless, enhanced-traction, puncture-resistant silica compound
Navigable terrain: pedestrian areas, including streets, sidewalks, grass areas, dirt roads, and hills
Turning radius: 0 (turns within its own footprint)
Maximum speeds: 6 mph (Beginner key), 8 mph (Sidewalk Operation key), 12.5 mph (Open Environment key)
Special mode: Power Assist, which allows powered movement over obstacles, stairs, and ramps when not riding
Platform height: 8 inches (20 cm)
User-controlled features: maximum speed, steering sensitivity, and handlebar height
Display: multicolor backlit LCD, shows battery charge and operating condition
Keys: three electronic, 64-bit encoded keys for Beginner, Sidewalk Operation, and Open Environment performance
Security: encoded keys
Safety: redundant systems
Footprint: 19 by 25 inches (48 by 64 cm)
Weight: 83 pounds (38 kg)
Battery type: two smart-charging, 60-cell NiMH packs
Battery range: 10 miles in good conditions on a single charge, 15 miles under optimal test conditions, and 5 miles average under strenuous conditions (continuous start-stop driving, use on inclines and grassy terrain, etc.)
Recharging method: conventional outlet plug-in, power cord included
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
Saw a Segway friday evening in Portland OR.
The operator was driving down the street at night.
No lights. No reflectors. Grey vehicle out in traffic and no helmet on operator.
I'd ban the damned things too.
Uh, no. Even if you are confusing a marathoner with a sprinter, the segway is still slower.
12 mph is good for a 5 minute mile, which is about the same as a third-rate high school distance runner.
~D
yes, more bike lanes is the answer. also if owners of electric cars get tax incentives for being eco-friendly so should people who commute on bikes.
for the $5G you spent on a segway you could've gotten a really nice bike and have already started working off most of that beer gut.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Buddy of mine is a Dallas Police Officer and he told me that these suckers were basically banned months ago here in Dallas. Namely because they are a danger to pedestrians, 80 lbs piece of metal with a 150+ lbs person jamming down the street at 12+ mph makes for a pretty good accident waiting to happen. Personally I am glad they are banning these things, they are useless and will just make people lazy. If we need anything we need subways in all large cities, and people can just walk between stations, least it will get people off their ever growing butts for a while.
My biggest question is where do you put them once you're finished travelling? With cars you park them, with bikes, you can lock them in bike racks, but there is zero infrastructure in place to secure your Segway.
What's the point in taking a Segway somewhere if you can't lock it down. This means you couldn't take it to go shopping, seeing a movie, go to the doctor's, go to class, etc. You might be able to take it to work and keep the Segway in your office... if you have space. That's about it... it doesn't have any other practical use.
I would prefer rollerblades to the Segway any day, since they are small and portable.
As far as I know it is illegal to drive a moped or scooter on most major US city sidewalks. They are considered street vehicles, so it is about the same as driving your car on the sidewalk. Maybe it is different in Hawaii. I would personally rather see no motorized vehicles on the sidewalks, hell bikes should even be there, sidewalks are for people and walking.
It's a phobic response pure and simple. It's irresponsible to ban an environmentally-friendly transportation vehicle without evidence it is a threat.
Yeah, no kidding. Frankly, I think that's the heart of the matter. The rest is just political rhetoric.
I'm no fan of the Segway. I think it's pretty stupid, and will never be anything more than a toy. But when I read about it being banned in San Francisco, one thought came to my mind -- "typical!"
Personally, I hate all the little punk speed freaks begging for money all over the city. But I don't propose banning skateboards, which I'm sure pose a greater threat to pedestrians.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
No way. They are equally as dangerous as bikes, if not more so (Segways don't have brakes).
Bzzzt. Wrong.
While the Segway doesn't have traditional friction brakes, it does have regenerative braking ala the GM EV1. Essentially when you lean back to brake, the Segway puts the motors in reverse and turns them into generators. Otherwise there'd be not real way to stop a Segway.
The evil monkey commands you to dance.
This is a motoized vehicle, and had absolutely no business on the sidewalk. If anywhere, it should be on the road, with rights/responsibilities somewhere between a bicycle and a motorcycle.
A sidewalk is for pedestrians, not bicycles, mopeds or anything else. Perhaps, roller skaters, but I think that's the extent of how mechanical a sidewalk dwelling vehicle should be.
I'm an avid cyclist (both competitive and recreational), and I know damn well that we cyclists have to fight tooth and nail for our right to the road and/or bike lanes. I cringe every time I see a cyclist on the sidewalk because it causes people to expect that cyclists will ride on the sidewalk, and this is just not right. We have a right to the road, and have fought very hard for what little bit of it we have.
Likewise, I shudder every time I see an avid runner in the bike lane. I guess they do it because they can't be bothered with the lame sidewalk.
Anyway, every vehicle has it's place in the transportation system. Pedestrians belong on the sidewalk. Bicycles have a right to the road, and the same responsibilities as any car or motorcycle. I think a Segway should fall into the same category as a bicycle; it should have a right to the road, but shouldn't be able to take the full lane unless necessary for safety, just like a bicycle.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
I'm watching this thread closely. I don't doubt for a minute that the PR firms that handle tech clients have seeded /. with paid posters. Segway is backed by famously deep pockets and would be a likely customer for a /. turfing.
Thus far, all the highly modded posts are quite rightly pointing out the existing laws and science of bicycle transportation. Let's see what the latter posts look like now that that the employees of Kamen's PR company are likely to be working late tonight.
This is a good place to start if you're looking for real studies of transportation safety.
I can understand this happening in SF, where you can't walk slowly without touching shoulders with everyone. On a large moving platform with handlebars, you're just begging for injuries and lawsuits and whatnot.
Oakland is a bit less crazy, same with Santa Cruz, and San Mateo is just silly (hey we're a big city too! give us some press!)
Anyway, there are definitly areas of all these cities where I'd love to be moving a bit faster, as well as areas where everyone should be walking. Bikes, rollerblades, skateboards, mopeds, etc should be banned by an area-by-area basis.
How about Walking-Only zones (handicapped excepted) in certain areas as opposed to shooting things down individually before they are even being shipped....geez
On the sidewalk in urban areas, you can (IANAL, so this is just based on experience and what I've known cops to give you a talking-to for) ride skates (inline or the older non-trendy kind), non-powered Razor(TM)-type scooters and your Nike Air Force Ones. Yea, you can stop down the sidewalk in your... Ugh, I wish I could get that song out of my head.
The problem I see the Segway having is the same problem Go-peds have. You can't ride go-peds on the sidewalk. You can't ride them in the street either, most of them lack the equipment and certification required to make them street legal.
The smallest gas powered (as in engine displacement) street legal vehicle is a 49.9cc moped/scooter. If you take a look at one, you'll notice it has DOT approved lighting, turn and brake signals. I'm sure if the Segway was modified to be street legal, it could be driven on the street, but ask anyone who has driven a moped (usually with a top speed of about 30MPH) what it's like having people not see you and passing you going 10-25MPH faster than you in most cases. If the Segway has a top speed of 12MPH and is less visible than a biycle, sharing the road with cars would be nothing short of suicide.
As others have said many times before (especially those who ride 49.9cc mopeds/scooters), there needs to be a dedicated lane for low-speed powered vehicles on roadways. Mixing low-speed vehicles with cars and trucks is just as dangerous as mixing low-speed vehicles with pedestrians.
Issues like these make me glad I'm old enough to have a driver's licence and just drive a car.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Yeah! We are much more interested in how Christopher Lowell turns a piece of shit into a bigger piece of shit, but colorful.
So go mind your freakin business and leave us to our champagne coolies and cats!
[Karma to burn]
Live web cams
This is mostly true, but note that it's not universally true that bicycles are banned from sidewalks; in the US this is usually a matter for local governments (though there may also be a few states with such bans, I'm not sure).
Certainly it's true that, whatever the law says, people on vehicles with nonzero stopping distances (like bicycles) are better off riding with traffic rather than riding on the sidewalks.
--Bruce F.
The title should include the word "sidewalk" in it. Many posters think that the devices have been banned entirely.
What would you expect, coming from Canada?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Bikes belong in the street. There is a political/social movement called Critical Mass that advocates bike-safe streets. ANY city can start a Critical Mass ride, they take place in cities all over the planet on the last friday of the month - AND ITS SUPER FUN!
all thats necessary is a few posters in the bike shops designating a meeting time (city hall, say 19:00) and the group determines the ride based on their mood. Follow the rules of the road, and pass out filers.
I'll bet ten to one that the automobile industry lobbied against their use. Also seems very bizarre to ban something before it exists. Is that legal? Has San Francisco turned into a bunch of luddites now that the .bomb crash has set it?
If the seguay is allowed to prosper, cars will be gone from the central parts of cities the world over in 10 years.
I wonder what the U.S Postal Service is going to do in San Francisco? They are getting the first free ones
You wanna be the one to tell the Postal worker that he can't have his Segway? I don't.
Well, I'll explain it for you and all the other lazy ignorant types who lurk around here. The California law defines pedestrian, and it includes any wheelchair when the operator, "by reason of physical disability, is otherwise unable to move about as a pedestrian." The amenedment for Segway was just a giveaway, redefining anyone on a Segway as a pedestrian, which is absurd.
Remember that prior to this, the default in most cities is that motorized vehicles of any kind (except the powered wheelchairs of the disabled) are not allowed on sidewalks.
In some cases vehicles of any kind are by default banned, usually bikes and often rollerblades and even skateboards.
Segway worked hard to get laws passed to declare their device a special case, not like an ordinary motorized vehicle. Some cities resisted, said, "no, we are not going to make a special exception for your new device. It gets classed like any other motorized vehicle, and as always, it's banned from the sidewalks."
Where Kamen goofed is he got broader laws passed declaring the Segway to not be a vehicle and thus, according to state and national laws IT IS NOT ALLOWED ON THE ROADS. So in places where it is banned on the sidewalk, it is also, unless they say otherwise, also not allowed on the roads either. I don't think this will be enforced, though.
I do agree they should see if the device is a danger before deciding where it should go. But realize that the current default is what SF did. What other cities who are "not banning" it have done is to change their rules to allow this one motorized vehicle on their sidewalks.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
If, for any reason, you feel compelled to get off the street and on to the sidewalk, you have every right to do so, but then you must get off your bike and walk it. Not ride slowly, not ride fast, not ride at all, walk, just like the last 4 letters of the word sidewalk. Hope this helps.
I wanted to say a couple things about this as a lifelong resident of Santa Cruz:
Where would they ban the Segway from being used? The article just says the sidewalks but doesn't specify which ones.
Perhaps the largest areas with foot traffic that I can think of in Santa Cruz is either UCSC or Pacific Ave, where a lot of businesses are. (Any other Santa Cruz folks wanna pipe in, these are two places that I think of that have a lot of people).
If Santa Cruz were to ban it from just Pacific Ave, that would make sense because it is already crowded as it is, having a Segway there is NOT going to help anyone other than getting in the way of pedestrians.
They already ban skateboards and rollerblades on Pacific Ave, why allow Segways?
If Santa Cruz were stupid enough to ban it from all sidewalks in the city, that would be quite moronic. There are plenty of places that it would be kind of nice to have. Santa Cruz is small enough for a Segway to be a reasonable commuting device (although a bike would be better). As I mentioned before, they banned skateboards and rollerblades on Pacific Ave, but they do allow them in other parts of the city, so a city-wide ban doesn't seem likely.
Having said that, I personally think the Segway will fail in Santa Cruz. Considering that it can typically travel faster than a normal pedestrian, the Segway's best place would probably be in the bike lanes as opposed to the sidewalks. I believe Segway argues otherwise and calls it a pedestrian vehicle.
However, Santa Cruz, as political and anti-corporate, anti-national-chains, pro-bike, etc. as they are, they don't really have that many bike lanes. If you were to just glance at the opinions page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel (the local newspaper), you would have people complaining about a lack of bike lanes. If you were to ride your bike in Santa Cruz, you might notice this as well.
I think that for the Segway to succeed, they REALLY need to figure out how to market these things. By that I mean, they need to figure out where these things belong. I believe Segway says it should be on the sidewalks. I personally think that at the speeds they are capable of, they need to be in the bike lanes.
No worries, you'll just bounce off my 320lb gut and turn around just in time for me to kick you in the face with my steel-tipped Timberlands until you're eating out of a straw for the rest of your life...
Every irresponsible f?ck I take out is one less that'll damage a little old lady bringing her gelusil home...
The hype shouldn't write checks the product can't cash.
Then again, it would be nice if important inventions could be evaluated on something other than how well they play as the lead story on Entertainment Tonight.
LadyStar - Your Magical and Mysterious Adventure Awaits
Think about it;
This is a device that makes you taller, makes you physically bigger and can make other people move out of your way. I was watching the segway being used in a video promoting the segway and the thing that is most noticed is that people walking would automactically get out of the Segway's way. I have had enough of fucking SUV and the asshole driver bullying everyone else on the road. I dont want to see it happen on the sidewalk also.
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Because it's an auto industry conspiracy! Conspiracy I say! And everyone knows that the auto industry is responsible for SUV's and all SUV owners are terrorists! It's the terrorists!!!
>Your attitude towards your fellow citizens
>is offensive in the least, and stupid besides.
My "attitude" towards my "fellow citizens" was formed by their insolent, childish, selfish, obnoxious behavior. If you have a problem with my "attitude" towards yuppies, try teaching the little fucktards a few basic lessons in civility. Namely:
* Pay attention to where the fuck you are on the road when you're driving your $70,000 petroleum chugging fume belching lane hogging pedestrian composter.
* Learn how to park. In a single space - not three.
* Learn how to use your turn signal. And how to turn it off.
* Learn that red lights mean, "stop."
* Turn off the ringer on your goddamn cell phone when you attend the movies or the symphony. Anybody who's earning $150,000 a year for "harnessing cutting edge models" or "branding granular e-business" or "utilizing magnetic schemas" or whatever the e-bullshit d'jour is in the tech sector ought to be able to figure out how to silence their $500 cell phone.
>Do you really think that "pasty yuppie asses" will
>be the ones to buy this thing - instead of (for example)
>postal workers, who are already testing it?
Well, considering it's a $5,000 tech gadget that performs essentially the same function that a bicycle, skateboard or roller-skates could perform for at least $4,500 less, yes I'd say "pasty yuppie asses" are exactly the crowd that will be buying this thing. Anybody who ever worked an honest day in their life would certainly blanch at the thought of blowing $5,000 on a toy that makes you look like a clueless dork, and turns you into a threat to 90-year-old grandmothers on their way to buy groceries. But based on prior experience (see above), I wouldn't expect selfish, self-absorbed yuppies to spend a single millisecond considering the welfare of others.
I could see the Segway being useful in an environment like a warehouse, but we weren't talking about banning them in warehouses, only on the sidewalks.
Regarding postal workers, they're already reporting they hate the things. As one of them put it, standing around on a Segway buzzing down the sidewalk at 12mph when the temperature is below freezing turns you into a giant popsicle on a stick real quick.
Allowing small powered vehicles on sidewalks is a real issue. The Segway isn't the only contender. What about electric-powered scooters, which far outnumber Segways? What about powered shopping carts, like you see in some stores? What about all those golf-cart type devices sold to the elderly? Where do you draw the line?
Skateboarders aren't usually a problem because bad skaters wipe themselves out before they hit others.
"hiring high-powered lobbyists may have backfired."
Yes well when the politicians look at how much they spent on the lobbyists (shirtloads)
and compare that with how much they spent on bribes *cough* campaign contributions (none?)
it doesn't take an MBA (like George W's dad bought for him) to work out what you need to do;
You stiff the berk with the gall to fail to bribe you *at*all* and then spent $$$ big to hire an outfit to harass you (erm 'lobbyist: paid bribe giver and harasser').
The inventors of the seqway may be geniuses but they don't understand politics.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I don't understand how the Segway, which weighs 69lbs can be safer than a skateboard, or rollerblades.
Dude... I'm a 275lbs rugby player that can't roller-blade for shit. Trust me when I say that ANY segway accident will be WAY safer than me "losing it" on my blades!
$0.02 (CDN)
Lets apply the conservation of momentum to a situation involving a man walking toward another man of same mass going 15 mph on a segway (for this we'll neglect friction).
Vi1 = 2.235 m/s (5 mph)
M1 = 77.27 Kg (150 lbs)
Vi2 = 6.705 m/s (15 mph)
M2 = 100 Kg (220 lbs)
say at the end the segway with rider stops in its tracks and the man goes flying, and since the man is travelling toward the man we can say he's going -2.235 m/s.
Pi = Pf
M1(Vi1) + M2(Vi2) = M1(Vf1) + M2(Vf2)
(77.27 Kg)(-2.235 m/s) + (100 Kg)(6.705 m/s) = (77.27 Kg)(Vf1) + 0
Vf1 = 9.648 m/s or 21.583 mph.
ouch.
(sorry about repost forgot to put in my pw.)
I've seen two yuppies (the financial kind) whiz by on the sidewalk in front of my office in downtown San Francisco (so much for "a device that hasn't arrived yet"), and I wholly agree with the ban - these contraptions are a serious hazard to pedestrians. They are wide, have a high center of gravity and are very fast. They will also probably be driven by the same heedless people who burn red lights in their SUVs (I see that happen at least twice a week in SF).
So, I think a lot of people are worried about { nothing | something | having to get out of the path of yet another asshole on a wheeled vehicle | nitwits without any regard for the law or its underlying purpose }. It's the regular fear of the unknown. If a segway mowing you down is your greatest fear in life, { I envy you | too fucking bad | you must be a goddamn pedestrian | you live in some shitty-ass country where most people don't own cars | you are elderly | you are a small child }.
And perhaps if I run towards a bullet and hit it, I will stop and the bullet will shoot away at 300 mph. Seriously. You can't just assume M2(Vf2) = 0. Remember to conserve energy too. High school physics 1 can be a dangerous thing with no high school physics 2.
Unfortunately, bike trails have turned out to have poor safety records. (Here are some pointers to related research.) The main problem is with intersections: try to figure out how to design a path alongide a road so that right-of-way is always clear, cyclists don't always have to stop (if you ask them to stop at every single driveway and intersection, they're just not going to), stoplight cycle times aren't significantly increased (think what'll happen if you try adding extra light phases for the bikes...), etc., etc. Lots of people have attempted this, in this country and elsewhere. The results are not encouraging.
So the moral is: no, as a cyclist, you really *are* better off riding on the city streets. Research has found this to be safest, it works great (I probably ride a couple thousand miles a year on city streets, and have never had a crash), it's fun once you get the hang of it, it gets you where you want to go extremely quickly.... Don't wait for a special bike ghetto before you start riding. Observe the standard traffic rules and be courteous, and you can ride your bike wherever you want right now.
--Bruce F.
That was one of the best, most entertaining flames I've read in a while. Nice work.
Anybody who ever worked an honest day in their life would certainly blanch at the thought of blowing $5,000 on a toy that makes you look like a clueless dork, and turns you into a threat to 90-year-old grandmothers on their way to buy groceries.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, but I'm sure people said precisely the same thing when the "horseless carriage" was introduced....
WTF is up with the lame comments along the line of "I can't believe they're doing this!" I get exactly what San Francisco city officials are doing... look at this word:
Sidewalk
no no no... go back and look at my emphasis. SideWALK.
The name alone characterizes itself as a separate place for pedestrians to move about a city or town block. The last time I checked, pedestrians != motorists.
Since Segway comes with speed governors, it would be just as simple to mandate they be dialed down to their slowest setting until there was more experience with it. When cars were introduced, the same thing happened. Eventually, when people understand the issues, reasonable accomodations can be made.
I'm giving you a standing ovation and and a lighter lit high in my hand..(which makes this hard as hell to type)
Now wait till WangCo makes a $150 knock off with turbo, wheel spikes, flashing LEDs and a subwoofer, and a bunch of drunk teenagers get them. No accidents?
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Bullitt (1968)
Genre: Action/Crime/Mystery
Tagline: Steeve McQueen as 'Bullitt'
A Great movie and the reason I have always wanted a hunter-green 289 fastback 1968 Ford Mustang
Ok, I'm convinced. Allow Segways, ban people.
Thanks for the offer...I am curious! (Probably won't make it to lovely Seattle again for some time though)
;-)
I find your experience believable, if not entirely germane. I've gone hundreds of miles on rollerblades with no problem either, but that doesn't mean they stop as well as a bike, let alone a car.
Essentially, if your upcoming halt in a Segway is not a sudden surprise, it makes sense it would stop very well...the mechanism will be able to read your body's cues, speed up the wheels to get them in front of your center of mass, and thereby eliminate the torque during your stop.
However, if you run the thing into, say, an unseen curb, I think you will endo. Or whatever you call it on a Segway. I've done just that twice on a bicycle with one endo (as a kid) and one non-endo (as an adult). So statistically that's what?....maybe a 50/50 endo probability with a 5% confidence level
Rollerblades, BTW, are weird to hit unseen obstacles in. The tiny wheels mean of course that they stop short on relatively small irregularities (let alone curbs). On the other hand, having two legs means that hitting something usually results in nothing more than an awkward stagger as you quickly lift the other leg and thrust it in front of you. I haven't fallen while skating forward in years (don't ask about backward, ow!).
Of course, none of this debate has much to do with whether they belong on sidewalks. Personally, I think they should be treated like bikes -- legally expected to ride the streets, but unoficially ignored if they take sidewalks at reasonably low speeds. (I always ride my bike on the street).
I'd be happy to ride my bike on the street instead of the sidewalk. I don't want to deal with walkers - Unfortunately, 2 things need to change to make this feasible:
1) F***ing drivers need to know that bicycles belong on the road. I have been sworn at more times than I care to count by drivers passing me (or swerving around - see #2).
2) Shoulders. They're good. It's bad for bikers when shoulders don't exist. I don't WANT to ride in the middle of traffic - it's easy for a car to maintain 35mph, but it's hard for me!
In the meantime, I will only ride on the road when the sidewalk is LESS safe (for me or re: pedestrians) or when there's NO sidewalk. (I guess that also makes it less safe..)
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
One good thing though - since the Segways are bought by well-off people with a spare $5,000 to spend on scooter, the lawsuits will at least be worth it.
Too bad it "pisses you off", but that's your problem. It's your own ignorance and "hipocrasy" you should work on. I have a *very* close relative who barely escaped with his life from a situation where the "traditionally privileged" had been promoted as source of everyone's problems often enough that a mob decided that it was time for "justice" (that means violence against the scapegoated minority), yet you think it "causes little harm".
Unlike you, I don't find it any more acceptable for a liberal to spout class warfare vitriol than for a white supremacist to spout racist drivel.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
> When cars were introduced, the same thing happened.
No, not really. First cars were going rather slow, just because they didn't have the horsepower to go faster. And although they weren't very severe because of the low speeds and very large (compared to a Segway) vehicles involved, there were many, many accidents because there were no rules, no one had a driver's license and no one knew how to avoid the inherent dangers.
after a while, they implemented clever ideas like traffic lights and stuff.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
"Greedy politicians an old time lobbying from the motor industry are the most likely explanations, if you ask me."
Bah! You'll be telling me that you can run cars on vegetable oil next! Oh, wait...
That was classic intercourse!
obviously there are going to be accidents using the Segway. What you aren't taking into consideration is the number of accidents that would occur with or without the segway. It would be interesting to get statistics on "walking accidents" the number of people that stumble walking of a sidewalk and roll their ankle.