Rent A Segway... Get Arrested
from the oops dept
Reuters has an article that's getting picked up all over the place this evening about a company that just started up to rent the incredibly overhyped Segway scooters to those unwilling to pay $5,000 for their own. The rental prices run at $20 for half an hour with a 90 minute limit (so you get back before the battery runs out). You can also "test it out" for $5. In order to prevent theft, they've hidden GPS devices on the scooters. Interesting idea, though, it still seems like a niche audience. Who really wants to rent such a thing for an hour? More importantly, though, this other operation that's looking to do the same thing is discovering that they may be breaking the law. Police in Vancouver are investigating another Segway rental company, saying that the devices aren't legal on streets or sidewalks in their city. This other operation will rent the scooter out for an entire day. In the meantime, after having trouble getting police to buy into the scooters in the US, Segway is looking overseas. They're talking to police departments in the UK who are experimenting with the scooters. What the company should do now is try to get the police in Vancouver to test out a couple of the Segways. Then they could ride up to the Segway rental place and arrest them via Segway.
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when segways are outlawed...
I can see it now... outlaw segway riders hopping up their segways to outrun the "normal" cop segways. I wonder if the police will come up with a "sweep" maneuver designed to bring an segway outlaw to a stop (maybe they could just stick their nightstick in the outlaw's spokes)
Let the war of the middle aged, overweight, overpaid, falsely-environmentally-sensitive, white males begin.... this should be better than "robot wars".
They hypocracy is so thick on this one, I could spread it with a knife.
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Segway rentals.
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