January 28, 2003
Dazzled by Technology?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
Aside from being a beautiful city, San Francisco has quite a reputation. Those of us who live here see it as being accepting of diversity, ready to embrace the eclectic and the innovative. We like it here because we can challenge the status quo, whenever we feel it needs challenging. And one new technology - and the company which developed it - has just found that out the hard way.
Have you ever seen a Segway HT? I did, and I must say it's magnificent. I watched its inventor, Dean Kamen, glide through a reception, stopping here and there for small talk, executing spins to the delight of all. And today, these Segways are about to come off the production line.
It turns out that Segway LLC has spent the last year doing more than revving up manufacturing. It's also lobbied one state legislature after another to designate these stand-up scooters as "pedestrians." You see, any vehicle labeled a "pedestrian" can drive on the sidewalk.
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I kept wondering, since Segways are clearly capable of sustaining at least 12 miles per hour, why not just treat them like bicycles and send them to the bike lane? And then I got it: Who wants to be zipping along at 12 miles per hour and have someone open his car door? If Segway wants to sell these babies, they had better have access to the sidewalk ... where it's safe.
Segway readily admits hiring lobbying firms, and thus far, over 30 state governments have passed these techno-pedestrian laws. But this is quite an amazing feat considering there are no safety studies regarding Segways on city sidewalks. Go out to their website. Go out to the various state government websites. I even emailed Segway to no avail. You know what? There aren't any.
Here in San Francisco, our Board of Supervisors voted to ban the Segways from our sidewalks, citing the lack of data to responsibly guarantee public safety.
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This actually caused quite a brouhaha. Mayor Willie Brown threatened to veto. His spokesperson said that the vote "sends a defeatist message from San Francisco to the rest of the world. We're going to be the first city in the country to send out the message that we're afraid of this product, rather than embracing new technologies and new forms of transportation. It says we're so fearful that we don't even want to contemplate its use."
Even Segway's director of state government affairs got in on the act: "This sends the wrong message ... that San Francisco isn't the technology capital of the West."
But we San Franciscans love attempts to bully us - it means we're on the right track.
So on January 20th, the legislation to ban Segways went into effect, and we still get to gaze on Willie Brown in wonder. He landed light as a feather, poised to play both sides of the street. To Segway and its supporters, he could correctly say he didn't have the votes to make a veto stick. To everyone else, he could claim that he'd come to his senses.
Politics aside, I still believe it's important for each of us to form an opinion here, and I personally think banning the Segway - for now - is the right and responsible decision.
Just think of it this way: Segway in haste, repent in leisure.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
