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January 08, 2008
Seg-no-way
I really do not like Segways. They are a marvelous invention, relying on technology and design that I could not even comprehend. Nevertheless, they are annoying and stupid.
I was crossing the street outside my office building today, when a man on a Segway buzzed me as he came from the opposite direction. I turned to watch him as he went, and I wanted to make a face at my fellow pedestrians, as if to say, look at this d-bag. Nobody noticed, though.
There are a litany of reasons why I don't like Segways. First, they promote laziness. As if Americans aren't sedentary enough, now we have a machine that will do our walking for us. Dean Kamen, who invented the thing, once said that he envisioned people in offices rolling around between cubicles on their Segways. It's not that hard to walk to somebody else's cube, and hell, most people don't even bother to walk over to another cube: they call on the phone or maybe send an instant message.
Second, they're dangerous. If more people wind up with Segways, they are going to start running old-fashioned pedestrians off the sidewalk. If they get banned to the street, like bicycles, they'll cause more chaos because cyclists will have to zoom around them.
Third, people who ride them look stupid. Remember the episode of Frasier where Niles Crane was riding a Segway? That's right, and who wants to be associated with Niles Crane, the ultimate TV wuss if there ever was one. Yes he scored a hot English wife, but he was also fictional, so it is hard to make a case for that meaning anything. About five years ago, whilst still living on the street that gave this here commentary its fine name, I saw a man riding a Segway down Belmont Avenue. He looked so smug and smarmy atop that thing, I wanted to steer him into a pothole. It is the transportation equivalent of socks and sandals or the fanny pack. A person riding one automatically looks like an uberdork. They may as well ride a unicycle, at least that has a fun novelty edge to it.
The only advantage to Segways that I can think of are that they get you where you want to go faster than walking. However, that doesn't matter. Why would anyone want to hang out with a guy who rolls up on a Segway? Exactly.
entry no. 1053
Posted at January 8, 2008 04:17 PM