Oh, it has its strong points; for getting somewhere just slightly faster than your legs can carry you, there are few products that compare. Persons with legitimate physical limitations may indeed benefit from this alternative to powered wheelchairs and scooters. And for a brief while, devotees of high-tech gadgets had a field day before the next shiny gizmo with limited long-term usefulness came along.
At one of the first Segway launch parties, they lined up twenty Segways with messengers carrying gift baskets and had them “race” the length of the huge hall where the launch party was held. I think the messenger with a champagne and caviar won. His gift basket container was a beautiful bamboo carrying case with a handle which made carrying the gift basket while steering the segway that much easier. See if you can carry a gift basket while riding one of these. Its a new challenge. After the race there was a raffle where all the gift baskets were raffled off. I was one of the lucky raffle winners. I thoroughly enjoyed my premier wine gift basket with its trio of prestigious wines, smoked salmon, cheese and crackers, large vanilla caramels, peanuts, almond roca, and more. I ended up buying a gift basket for my wife for her birthday, but I never bought a Segway!
What’s Next for Segway?
The best minds of industry have obviously decided that more R&D is called for, more ‘next-year’s prototypes’ must be unveiled, and more money and time must be wasted before we do what the people of our parents’ or grandparents’ generation had sufficient time, money, and motivation to do.