Segway sales at an all-time high 4

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1. 

   Delay And Deny Posted 11:33 am
   16 Jun 2008

   Segway Sighting...?
   
   Other than at a demonstration staged in downtown Seattle just after it was released...I have yet to see a single person riding a Segway, anywhere, for any reason.   They are almost as rare (in the real world) as iPods.

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2. 

   JakobFabian01 Posted 10:01 pm
   16 Jun 2008

   ImpracticalitiesThe Segway just isn't practical.
   If it were designed for people with ambulatory disability, then it might have a real niche.  But the Segway requires the person who rides it to stand up straight.
   The Segway isn't very comfortable, either.  For most people, standing in one place like a soldier at attention is more tiring than walking around.  Walking is the simplest aerobic exercise there is, and the Segway simply deprives you of this exercise.  Standing in one place for a long period of time is a comparatively poor exercise.  Unless you tense your leg muscles at regular intervals while you stand in one place, it will give you nothing but varicose veins.
   A third impracticality is the need for a very flat surface to ride on.  Hit a bump, and you're likely to take a tumble.  Even a scooter is less likely to tip over, because its wheels are placed front and back.  A Segway's wheels are next to each other.  Therefore, the only way to make it stable and resistant to tipping is to add weight at the bottom.  Unfortunately, doing this makes the Segway less fuel efficient and even harder to lift over those inevitable bumps that it can't get over.
   I'd like to say that all these impracticalities guarantee that the Segway will never become popular with the US-American mainstream.  But I'd be saying this in a country where trains, the most efficient means of overland transport for large freight, have been neglected as a means of transportation for 50 years, while taxpayer money has been lavished upon highways and airports.  I'd be saying this in a country where fuel efficiency becomes appealing only when the price of oil climbs VERY steeply, and where, after fuel efficiency does rise and the oil price stabilizes, most people interpret this as a signal to buy a bigger car.  Who says US-Americans are practical?

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3. 

   John former Marine Posted 10:48 pm
   16 Jun 2008

   But Segways are expensive....Sure, they may be incredibly impractical and make you look like a dork, but they make you look like a RICH dork with lots of "disposable" income.  I've only seen Segways used twice.  One was while I was driving through Hanover, NH and saw a Dartmouth student riding one to class and the other was in Crystal City in Arlington, VA where people were riding them and handing out pamphlets for some hotel.  The Dartmouth student just looked like a dweeb (if you're not a weakling yet, riding your Segway is as good exercise as watching TV or playing Sega).  In Crystal City, the people riding them didn't hand out any pamphlets that I could see because they were busy driving.  Oh, and I saw a cop on one at Dulles Airport riding back and forth on a distance he could have covered just as fast with his legs.
   
        In every instance where I've seen them used, I've thought it looked incredibly inconsiderate as they force others to move off the sidewalk to let them pass.  If I ever come face to face with one, I'm just gonna stand there and make them go around me.  Motorized scooters aren't allowed on sidewalks, right?  But Segway riders just assume they can use the sidewalks because Segging is a form of walking now, I guess...

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4. 

   DannyGirl Posted 6:42 am
   23 Jul 2008

   I've seen a guy riding a segway from Microsoft......from Microsoft campus up/down NE 40th street - presumably to his abode somewhere around there.  Of course I was struck by the same feeling most of us have: if you gotta go that fast, ride a damn bike already.  
   But, the Segway was kinda made for the campus environment more than any thing else.  So it fits.  It surely beats golf carts and Microsoft's shuttle fleet doesn't always meet the needs of its riders.
   Still, my revulsion to Segways is quite a bit less than those horrible 2-stroke engine scooters that the likes of "Schucks" sells to lazy teens.  Those things are stinky and loud!  I'd expect that the users of such scooters are on their way to needing sign language pretty quickly.
   When I was a teen and too young to have a driver's lic - and up to age 25 when I was too poor to own a car - I rode my bike everywhere!  It was a gateway to freedom from parental control (as early as age 13) and a gateway to fitness and thrift as well.  What's the problem with these people?  The Seattle area is even more accomodating of bicyclists now than it was back in "my day".

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