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The Segway, Five Years Later
abb_road writes "The Segway was introduced with a promise to transform cities; BusinessWeek has an article on what the Segway has accomplished in 5 years, and how 'personal transportation,' and the company, have changed. From the article: 'The first Segway — a clean-running, technologically dumbfounding, fun-as-hell-to-ride device that was pretty much impossible to fall off of — was introduced to so much fanfare five years ago that the public-relations agency that helped engineer it still uses it as a case study in how to create a media frenzy. It may be an even better case study in media backlash. The initial euphoria had hardly worn off before a new consensus emerged: This was all much ado about a $5,000 scooter.'"
Atlanta has a segway tour. it is near the Atlanta Underground.
Well, I don't know of any- right now, that is. Keeping mind that if you actually had some real
range to the things instead of what they're limited to by current battery technology (In other
words, if a fuel cell or a Stirling Cycle engine could be made as the energy source for the
electronics instead of Li-Ion batteries so that the things have a 50-150 mile range instead of
the 10 or so that they currently do...) then there might be some re-working done because they
ARE quite impressive. As it stands, they do a tour of
downtown Austin and San Antonio on them and it's supposed to be pretty popular.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I took a segway tour this year while on holiday. I had never been on one before. In the 30 minute pre-tour class, the guide explained why G.W. fell off. Basically, he neglected to turn it on to balance mode. Rule # 1 is don't step on until you see the smiley face.
It was fun but I prefer riding a bicycle because you get zero exercise on a segway. It's heartening to hear you describe how it is useful to the disabled. My mother loves to travel to foreign cities where she spends days walking. She is too old to do that so I was thinking that she could rent a segway instead. Do you think that the segway would be useful for the elderly too?
They use them in DC. I see them all the time. The people riding them tend to be courteous though. I'd rather see a segway rider on a sidewalk than your typical city skateboard punk.
Finding other idiots on
Yeah, this is the comment I left under the article:
Needless to say, it is unlikely to end up in their comments section.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It looks like he just didn't turn it on first. I'm sure it's a common mistake.
Some of those pictures look like they were arranged to make it looks like he was riding, then fell off, which probably isn't true.
Not sure about the cities that redesigned themselves because of the Segway.
However there are a bunch of cities that are probably forever changed by the Segway... they passed laws forbidding the use of electrical small personnel vehicles, Segways, electric bycycles,etc from being on the sidewalks.