More Cities May Ban Segways

from the go-east... dept

Ever since San Francisco announced they were thinking of banning the Segway scooter from its sidewalks, cities all around Northern California are coming forward and saying that they don't want the damn things cruising around their streets either. It seems like it was only a matter of time until the Segway backlash went into full swing. Dean Kamen and his army of lobbyists might want to take a quick trip out west to knock some sense into these local legislators.
Hide this

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


  1. identicon
    Michael M, 9 Jan 2003 @ 2:36am

    Hmmm...

    So, there's already a major backlash against it, and it isn't available yet, and it's way overpriced.

    Does anyone actually think segway will succeed at all?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    hmmm, 9 Jan 2003 @ 3:23am

    Sense?

    The idea of mixing people with mechanised transport of any kind is entirely stupid. Ther is no sense in allowing segways on footpaths and they sure as hell can't mix with cars. The segway may be a nice design but it is also utterly stupid.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Al, 9 Jan 2003 @ 9:36am

    No Subject Given

    The city the Segway is perfect for just doesn't exist, perhaps can't exist.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Steve, 9 Jan 2003 @ 1:27pm

    FUD

    So of course I think all the buzz was silly, and I sure as hell won't be dropping thousands of dollars on one anytime soon, but the backlash is just plain iirational. Most of the stuff I've seen have seemed pretty clear that the Segway is definitely much safter than bikes or skateboards as far as pedestrian injuries. There certainly needs to be more exhaustive "crash testing" but on TV, I've seen one both run over some one's foot without any noticable pain and at a moderate speed, run into some one and the collision seemed very minor. Maybe at top speed it might be a different story, but at the price they're charging for them, and given the pressure I'm sure they knew they'd have, I'd sure be willing to bet that Kamen did an awful lot of testing before they were ready to show it to the world.

    Of course it it just seems like the politicians have a lot better things they could be doing that passing laws making something illegal before there's any indication of a problem. Of course it's all about knee jerk reactions and trying to make it look like you care about people while squeezing them for every dime you can.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.