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Commissioner Raymond Kelly must be a forward thinking guy, or at least a guy with a forward thinking staff, as the NYPD embarks on a 60 day trial using the Segway Human Transporter. The NY Post reports that 10 officers were put on Segways last week to deal with areas of heavy pedestrian traffic, like Midtown and Coney Island; the USPS and Atlanta police have also been testing out Segways. Gothamist thinks that police officers on Segways will be helpful only as a commanding conceptual presence of authori-tay and technology, because while it elevates them to be taller than others in the crowd, Segways are slower (top speed - 12 mph) than bikes or motorcycles and the police look kinda funny on them. As Officer Chintua Alozie tells the Post, ""You park it and go after the criminal. It has a bicycle lock if necessary." Hmm, can't wait for it to be used in an episode of Law & Order!
The Post points out that civilian Segway users can be ticketed, as Segways cannot be registered in NY State because they don't meet state safety regulations (then what about the people who do own them here in the 5 boroughs?).
Gothamist will wait for Phillip, of Book of Segway in the Pacific Northwest, to check in with his thoughts about using the Segway everyday and its potential in urban crime fighting. Until then: Gothamist's Segway coverage, including people who can (Amanda Hesser & Tad Friend) and cannot (President Bush & Gina Gershon) ride them.
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Yeah, that article was written in the dark. Dean Kamen doesn't WANT them on the street, or licensed, or labeled as vehicles. He wants them on the sidewalk.
The authori-tay figures riding on sidewalks could be part of Kamen's PR fight against municipalities which try banning Segways on sidewalks.
What they need to do is mount guns on them. I see the Segway as a mobile weapons platform - it's auto-stability gyroscopic mechanism would be ideal for balancing recoil from large-bore automatic weapons discharge.
And the next time those anti-globalism hooligans come to town...Whammo!
What somebody should do is immediately destroy all Segways and blow up the plans.
OK, well, at least stop anybody except factory/postal/etc. workers from using the damn things. They're big and bulky -- and using them for generally getting around on the sidewalks is just plan damn lazy. I mean, c'mon, gadgets are great, I love my PowerBook and cell phone as much as the next guy, but . . . it's also nice to use my own freaking body, the one with legs and arms & c.
If nothing else, the series of Friend/Hesser articles in Slate should stand as a beacon of how obnoxious the Segways can be. In Paris, they were rude, American in the worst way, and generally annoying.
I'm going to heckle the next lazy fool I see joyriding a Segway on the sidewalks of NYC.
Will someone explain how this lazy transporter is better than a bike? Not only can a cop chase somebody on a bike, but he can burn off donut calories while on the job.
I don't get why so many people are giving the Segways a hard time. We live in an age where people are lazy and products are designed to cater to those needs. Cell phones over pay phones, PDAs over address books, TiVo over VCR, etc, etc. When it comes down to it, it really is one of those "Jetsons"-type devices we've all been waiting for. It's just too bad that they are out of most people's price range and so now it's basically a scooter-toy for wealthy people. And like everything else, if you don't like it, don't get one. But do you really want to expend your energy mocking people who ride them?
That said, NYC is not a good place for the Segway, not just because of its atrocious streets and sidewalks, but because the moment you step off and turn your back someone will steal it. That includes stealing from police and mailpersons. If it's light enough to be carried away by two people, it's not safe! ;)
Maybe NYPD on Segway is like a PR effort, to bring more technologists to NY. Secret Bloomberg plan - make police so ridiculous that people won't refer them as "pigs" but as technology victims. Just thoughts, folks.
Segways are the SUVs of the sidewalks.
Hey, wasn't NYC supposed to be in some sort of deficit? The kind where firehouses and libraries are closed? And they found money to buy lazy machines in these lean times? Interesting...
Like all other Segways-in-photos, they're free.
The Mobile weapons platform idea ROCKS, btw. warm up the photoshop...
I propose a moratorium on Cop/Donut jokes.
Got it, Josh. Good suggestion. The donut thing is quite played, isn't it? (My father, though, is an retired cop, and I know with certainty that they do love a good donut.)
I was thinking about incorporating a cop-and-donut joke into the post, but wondered if that was too played out.
Also, cops like a good bagel: Columbia Bagels at 110th and Broadway always had at least one cop in there getting a bagel. When the school paper did a feature about Columbia Bagels, the writer interviewed a cop who admitted driving 3 miles out of the way to go to Columbia Bagels, all during the job.
I think at one time cop/donut jokes were alright. But at some point they sort of passed over into that realm of jokedom where things like writing "Wash Me" on dirty cars reside.
Perhaps "Wash Me" on a dirty police Segway would be funny?
Someone should draw a comic where the tires of the segway are made of donuts and there's a built-in coffeepot. Wouldn't want to ruin a running joke just because of a little thing like technology.
Having seen Segways on the sidewalk a few times I have come to the conclusion that they don't belong on the sidewalks any more than bikes or skateboards do. Let us pedestrians pedestriate in peace!
But what do they do with the Segway if they need to ditch them to chase a criminal? Do they just toss them on the sidewalk -- like it's a Big Wheel or my personal favorite The Green Machine? btw - Law & Order starts shooting tom... !
As someone who actually did try out the Segway, I dare to say that it was a lot of fun to ride. As for all the jokesters on here who have added their worthless 2 cents just because....,
I say to you.. just go and try riding one and sse if you have the dexterity to stand on one.
By the way, the City of New York did NOT buy the Segways during the trial period. They were loaned to the police Dept. by the company. So, before you start blabbing off at the mouth, do your research.
And to all the comedians who think that police officers are a source of their amusement, try becoming a police officer and do something for your community instead of bashing or shut your mouth.
Good god I wish they'd spend money upgrading the 1970s era communications and computer equipment. For Christ's sakes, the NYPD still uses TELEX MACHINES to facilitate communications between precincts. And here we are considering blowing precious money on SEGWAYS? Jesus. Maybe they could buy new computers for all precincts and connect them ALL to the LAN (rather than the 2-3 pieces of trash they usually have, the rest of the computers being standalones). Or an upgrade to the aging mainframe powered applications that crash every 2 days and are brought to their knees when a few dozen people around the city are logged in simultaneously. I kid you not, simple queries sometimes take 10 minutes. (There are fewer than 40,000 cops in this city; there can't be more than 1,000 AT MOST logged in and querying these systems at any given time. It's absurd.)
They also blew $10 or $20 million on a fancy display system for their command center. Maybe Commissioner Kelly could in the future spend the money on technology for the actual police officers doing the work in the field rather than some glorified computer screen (since a super hip command center is rather useless if the facilities it is commanding are sub-standard) or Segways. I guess the top brass is so disconnected from the actual reality of the front lines at the precincts that they truly have absolutely no f***ing clue what's really going on. Paper pushing bureaucrats, the lot of them. All they care about is being able to show the press the "great" and "effective" new gear they ordered for police headquarters. Morons.