What's Wrong With Walking?
from the the-Segway-will-make-us-fat dept
I thought about this, and a few friends have mentioned it as well. Won't the amazing new Segway just make us all fatter? Walking is an important bit of excercise that people really should do more of on a daily basis. Yet, with a Segway we're being encouraged to do less walking. Maybe it's all a plot of Dean Kamen's to make us all fatter and more susceptible to heart disease so he can sell more of his heart stents.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
the upside...
(SHT= Segway Human Transport)
or not...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
SegWay is for the disabled
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: SegWay is for the disabled
The Segway uses similar technology but is designed for the 'enabled.'
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Segweigh
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Segweigh
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Segweigh
Personally I don't think it will make us any lazier, those of us that wouldn't walk given half the chance already use the car. I know I drive down the local shops for stuff and that is only 15 mins walk. At least on the Segway I would get fresh air (but no car stereo).
Phillip.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
news bulletin: fat Americans are still fat
Someone actually does something original, the lazy critics always go for the easy layup.
Kamen's invention won't cure self neglect. Thanks for pointing that out. Let's toss it on the junk heap before it even gets a chance.
By the time a large city is filled with underpasses and overpasses and boulevards and parkades and parking lots it becomes pretty hard to walk anywhere. The automobile itself has created a cityscale where walking is not practical.
The first misconception to clear up is that people don't walk just to get from point A to point B. That's already the view from the driver's side window.
People walk to experience life. That means streets that built on a human scale, with many small diversions and activities, lots of life going on, trees and ice cream, and small shops to escape the elements.
In Montreal I used to walk 25 minutes to work even when it was 20 below. This was possible because there were five different independent book shops along my favorite route. Several of them have died since, strangled by the megastores filled with customers who most certainly aren't walking home.
Nobody walks to enjoy the traffic and long concrete walls covered in graffitti between Walmart and Home Hardware.
The idea that Segway is going to displace pedestrians is a pretty lame objection. The automobile has already done just about everything possible to make pedestrianism unpleasant.
I presently live in a small city littered with golf courses. The parks are nice, but the golf courses funnel all the vehical traffic into a small handful of major corridors. Off these corridors, the vast majority of side streets are labelled "No Exit".
It takes a lot of work to find pedestrian routes that avoid the busy corridors. About 30% of the streets labelled "No Exit" can actually be traversed on foot by unmarked paths connected to another street behind a park or across a gully. There are no signs erected to aid pedestrians in finding these paths. Pedestrians have no clout.
Segway will fail in America. Most Americans have never experienced life in a city life by foot is possible. In LA, if you have a McDonalds on one side of the street and Burger King on the other, it's a car trip to get between them.
Fortunately, there is more than America.
By 2020 the Chinese economy will be roughly the same size as the American economy. Large countries such as Brazil and Mexico will be another rung up the economic ladder. Sao Paulo, Beijing, Mexico city, these are places where you can't fit so many cars that no one walks, which are not already dominated by Walmart megaboxes, where the streets have always been a big part of daily life.
The only salvation for Segway in America is demographics. More than half the American population will soon be in their "golden" years. I suspect there's a cohort in there not willing to go directly from a minivan to a motorized golf cart.
This city already has a majority of its population at a retirement age. Stingy and affluent at the same time. They'll drive an extra mile to save $1 on a halogen light bulb, then spend $50 on an organic laxitive. The largest building on my way to the local fitness center is the Arthritis Institute.
I think a bigger problem for Segway is that the two feet are bound rigidly together. It just doesn't scream "freedom" in its current configuration.
I'm waiting for the version that looks like a pogo stick crossed with a unicycle. One medium sized wheel between your legs with enough suspension to jump curbs, and stirrups that rotate the ankles in a way that forces the rider to keep their weight on the high side of a pirouette. I bet it wouldn't be much harder to learn, once perfected, than riding a bicycle.
[ link to this | view in thread ]