Bad News for Segway Lovers

"one of the six billion" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

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Having a two year old child I find that to be good news.

"Paul Herrera" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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I have no beef with the Segway per se (and for the forseeable future there will be too few - on the
sidewalks or anywhere - to matter,) but I find this journalist's writing comical. Way too many
adjectives such as "ingenious inventor" and "high powered backers."

This one really got me laughing; "The Segway's best hopes may now rest with suburban areas -- not
the cities that the company originally hoped to decongest." Cities become decongested if their
populations are reduced or their areas increase. How does the journalist think cities would become
less congested if the "footprint" of each ped more than doubles? "Provide mobility?" OK, but
"decongest?" Ha!

Isaac

Isaac Brumer said:

This one really got me laughing; "The Segway's best hopes may now rest with suburban areas -- not
the cities that the company originally hoped to decongest." Cities become decongested if their
populations are reduced or their areas increase. How does the journalist think cities would become
less congested if the "footprint" of each ped more than doubles? "Provide mobility?" OK, but
"decongest?" Ha!

They're imagining that vehicle drivers, not pedestrians, will switch to Segways.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Paul Herrera <[email hidden]> wrote in news:3E1DE716.2020507 @neo.tamu.edu:

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siliconvalley.com4904554.htmOpen ↗

Anyone know why Segway's aren't classified as vehicles like bicycles? They apparently can achieve
the same speeds as casual bicyclists, at least on flat ground.

Ken

I don't know why anyone is bothering to legislate them at all since they'll be gone in a few years
anyway unless they plan to come out with a half price gas engine version, wouldn't that be a fine
piece of irony.

"Brent Bolton" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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It's easy to imagine a legislator saying something like "well we ban Segway's from high speed
roads, shouldn't we ban bikes too?"

I don't believe you are allowed to take your bicycle out onto an interstate highway.

10 Jan 2003 10:18:22 -0800,

Quoted post said:

This one really got me laughing; "The Segway's best hopes may now rest with suburban areas -- not
the cities that the company originally hoped to decongest." Cities become decongested if their
populations are reduced or their areas increase. How does the journalist think cities would become
less congested if the "footprint" of each ped more than doubles? "Provide mobility?" OK, but
"decongest?" Ha!

Isaac

Because there are more boneheads who drive less than 5 miles than who will walk one mile. Congestion
caused by vehicular traffic is undesirable in a city. It's noisy, smelly, filthy and dangerous.

Congested pedestrian zones are what give a city life by attracting even more pedestrians.

You don't have to increase the area of a city to increase its capacity for sustaining human
activity. Just stop paving it and start to build housing on the parking lots. Tear out the freeways
and put in light rail. All of a sudden there's at least 30% more land.
--
zk

In article <[email hidden]>, Isaac Brumer

Quoted message said:

This one really got me laughing; "The Segway's best hopes may now rest with suburban areas -- not
the cities that the company originally hoped to decongest." Cities become decongested if their
populations are reduced or their areas increase. How does the journalist think cities would become
less congested if the "footprint" of each ped more than doubles? "Provide mobility?" OK, but
"decongest?" Ha!

He's talking about shrinking the footprint of a car.

--Paul

"Mark Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:avn04g$mi2$1 @slb9.atl.mindspring.net:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It's easy to imagine a legislator saying something like "well we ban Segway's from high speed
roads, shouldn't we ban bikes too?"

I don't believe you are allowed to take your bicycle out onto an interstate highway.

You can bicycle on some interstate freeways. Others are closed to bicycles if they lack shoulders
and alternative routes are available.

Zoot Katz <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
| 10 Jan 2003 10:18:22 -0800,
| <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] (Isaac Brumer) wrote:
|
| >This one really got me laughing; "The Segway's best hopes may now rest with suburban areas -- not
| >the cities that the company originally hoped to decongest." Cities become decongested if their
| >populations are reduced or their areas increase. How does the journalist think cities would
| >become less congested if the "footprint" of each ped more than doubles? "Provide mobility?" OK,
| >but "decongest?" Ha!
| >
| >Isaac
|
| Because there are more boneheads who drive less than 5 miles than who will walk one mile.
| Congestion caused by vehicular traffic is undesirable in a city. It's noisy, smelly, filthy and
| dangerous.
|
| Congested pedestrian zones are what give a city life by attracting even more pedestrians.
|
| You don't have to increase the area of a city to increase its capacity for sustaining human
| activity. Just stop paving it and start to build housing on the parking lots. Tear out the
| freeways and put in light rail. All of a sudden there's at least 30% more land.
| --
| zk

....And no way to deliver goods and services to the populace.

Perhaps I'll buy into your 'fantastic' scenario when I see the power company electricians, complete
with 40' ladders riding light rail into your euphoria to repair the electrical service... wait, now,
what powers the train? You, as an isolated individual might well exist without having your name on
the title of a motor vehicle, but rest assured, those who are responsible for your welfare, will
rely on motor vehicles to provide that service, as far into the future as can be imagined. My $0.02
on the Segway is I doubt it will ever be much beyond something resembling a semi-human powered fork
lift, used in warehouses, mail rooms and such.In it's current offering, I doubt it could maneuver in
the real world that experiences a variety of weather, and road conditions. ED3

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

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I'm curious to know if they have laws banning bicycles from sidewalks in those cities. If that is
the case then the whole thing is moot.

Many cities have an age cutoff on who can ride a bicycle on the sidewalk.
-----------------
Alex __O _-\<,_ (_)/ (_)

Mark Jones said:

"one of the six billion" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

How is it that people can't see the obvious absurdity to the car centric model we have now? It's
wrong on so many, many levels.

Yours is a minority opinion in the extreme.

You use that phrase as if it was an argument. To imply that because someone's opinion is unpopular
it's wrong is the worse kind of intellectual laziness.

--
Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g "Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll
do it, but don't make a big system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'"

"TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make any difference if it takes a
while to fix it."
-- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988

Matt O'Toole <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
|
| "Buck" <j u n k m a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m> wrote in message
| "]news:[email hidden]...
|
| > Even if everyone moved over to golf carts, there would still be a lot of pollution. The
| > electricity has to be generated somewhere in some way.
|
| and...
|
| > But generating the electricity would be just as polluting as the SUVs
they
| > replace.
|
| That's not necessarily true. It depends on where you're shifting the
power
| generation to. Some areas, like southern CA, get their electricity primarily from natural gas,
| nuclear, and hydro plants, which are cleaner than automobile engines. So for southern CA, electric
| cars make sense
from
| an air pollution standpoint. Plus, they can be charged overnight when demand is low.
|
| Other areas may not have the same circumstances.
|
| Matt O.

"...and hydro plants, which are cleaner than automobile engines..."

Yes, let's flood the hundreds of miles of rivervalleys, ruinning countless rivers for recreation,
and wildlife. Some reasonable people speculate that coastline degridation is due in part to the
daming of local rivers, which prevent the natural charging of silt to the coastal waters. Your
'enviromental' corcerns are shining through brightly... as long as it hits someone else, somewhere
else, it's a good thing. Natural gas combustion produces essential the same byproduct gases as
gasoline, and the efficiency, may not be as high as the EC engine, but it does happen in someone
elses backyard... well at least your being consistant. ED3

"Dane Jackson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mark Jones said:

"one of the six billion" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

How is it that people can't see the obvious absurdity to the car

centric

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

model we have now? It's wrong on so many, many levels.

Yours is a minority opinion in the extreme.

You use that phrase as if it was an argument. To imply that because someone's opinion is unpopular
it's wrong is the worse kind of intellectual laziness.

OK then. I think the people who dislike cars and the way they have changed society are
misguided as best.

My parents grew up in the years before cars were real common and things are a lot better now than
they were then. There is no comparison in the standard of living now versus 80 years ago.

Much of this has come about because of our ability to easily transport goods, materials and people
between widely separated locations. Try doing this in the days before cars were common. Even with
trains, materials still had to be taken off the train and transported by horse drawn cart. The
entire process was much slower than it is now.

Most people do not want to return to anything even remotely like the bad old days and will not allow
a few environmental activists try to roll back the clock.

To answer your response, his opinion is both unpopular and wrong. The car centric culture is serving
most people quite well. If you don't want to participate, that is fine by me.

"Mark Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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The car centric culture is serving most people quite well.

In exactly the same way high-cholesterol diets and no exercise served people quite well when they
cared more about how girth was a sign of status and less about how blocked arteries kill you.

RichC

"Rich Clark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

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"Mark Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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The car centric culture is serving most people quite well.

In exactly the same way high-cholesterol diets and no exercise served

people

Quoted message said:

quite well when they cared more about how girth was a sign of status and less about how blocked
arteries kill you.

Oh man, you are so funny.

"Mark Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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"Rich Clark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

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Driving, on the other hand, is very stressful.

Not for me. I enjoy driving.

It's common to enjoy things that cause stress. But try strapping on an EKG and a blood pressure
monitor while you drive, some time.

RichC

"Paul Herrera" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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One hopes sanity will prevail. If it's not a vehicle (it's too slow) then it's a 10mph pedestrian,
which is a really scary notion.

RichC

Paul Herrera <[email hidden]> wrote in news:3E1DE716.2020507 @neo.tamu.edu:

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siliconvalley.com4904554.htmOpen ↗

Anyone know why Segway's aren't classified as vehicles like bicycles? They apparently can achieve
the same speeds as casual bicyclists, at least on flat ground.

Ken

"Paul Herrera" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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This sounds to me like a lot of cities are concerned that they might have some liability if someone
were to get hit by a Segway.

Having a two year old child I find that to be good news.

"Paul Herrera" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

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