Petition: Legalise Segways in the UK

[Gyroman]

Gareth,

Of course I'm reading, wouldn't miss it for the world! Unfortunately, since you mention a large UK company, I'm not at liberty to comment easily on what you say withour due process! But, of course, in everyone's best interest, I'd let you know if anything you said was in any way inaccurate!! Other comments in this thread less so ...

Just for your interest, I'm in Chicago at 'Sensors Expo' with the 'Robotics and Vision' Expo in the adjacent hall. Segway Inc had a small booth there and were planning to show off their RMPs but it seems that they were delivered to the wrong part of the country. So Segway of Chicago stepped in to help with a range of machines available for demo, and it was great to meet 'fathertime' (Jim Reynolds) and put a face to the handle. A great guy as I'm sure most folk have already established.

Andy

[CovRob]

Originally Posted by Gyroman

I'd let you know if anything you said was in any way inaccurate!! Other comments in this thread less so ...

Aha! Many thanks for the steer. I stand corrected. Note to self - keep up to date

[ojflewis]

Hi Gareth and others

I fell in love with the Segway on a recent holiday to Lanzarote and intend to get one to commute to work (in London, but outside the centre). I've signed the petition and wondered whether it had already been sent in? are you still in phase 1 or now in phase 2?

Oliver

[gbrandwood]

Hi Oliver

Thanks for signing. Please feel free to ask your friends and relatives to sign too.

The petition didn't really gather the momentum I hoped it would and that's mainly my fault for not pushing it as hard as I would like. However, support continues to trickle in, and that is not a bad thing. We are in phase 2, which is basically keep collecting signatures until we have a reasonable amount. I reckon we need at least 2000 just so we can say "thousands of people" signed, which sounds much better than just hundreds.

So, watch this space and continue to spread the word.

Thanks for your support.

Gareth

[Isidore]

Originally Posted by ojflewis

Hi Gareth and others

I fell in love with the Segway on a recent holiday to Lanzarote and intend to get one to commute to work (in London, but outside the centre). I've signed the petition and wondered whether it had already been sent in? are you still in phase 1 or now in phase 2?

Oliver

Oliver, in four years of commuting in London, I have been stopped once, and then only spoken to informally. You will need to treat your Seg as a bicycle and not ride on the pavement and you should be fine, especially if unlike most cyclists you stop at traffic lights and don't ride the wrong way up one way streets!

[jryan]

I signed the petition! Do US signatures count as well?

Jeremy Ryan

[gbrandwood]

Thanks, Jeremy. They do count as a show of support, but I think officially, only UK addresses will count. There has been some great comments posted by people outside of the UK, so all is welcome!

[ojflewis]

Originally Posted by Isidore

Oliver, in four years of commuting in London, I have been stopped once, and then only spoken to informally. You will need to treat your Seg as a bicycle and not ride on the pavement and you should be fine, especially if unlike most cyclists you stop at traffic lights and don't ride the wrong way up one way streets!

Thanks for the encouragement. I followed your debate with Gareth here about where to use the Segway in the UK with interest. I guess it really depends on how busy the pavements are! I am often passed by bicycles on the pavement when I am walking to work, because the roads are narrow and full whereas the pavements are mostly wide and empty. I'm going from Twickenham (TW1) to Osterley (TW7). Some of the route is off road bike paths along the river, which is ideal.

I saw one poster got into trouble on Tower Bridge, which made me think that the busier it is, the more of a problem there's likely to be. What's your route?

Cheers

Oliver

[Isidore]

Originally Posted by ojflewis

Thanks for the encouragement. I followed your debate with Gareth here about where to use the Segway in the UK with interest. I guess it really depends on how busy the pavements are! I am often passed by bicycles on the pavement when I am walking to work, because the roads are narrow and full whereas the pavements are mostly wide and empty. I'm going from Twickenham (TW1) to Osterley (TW7). Some of the route is off road bike paths along the river, which is ideal.

I saw one poster got into trouble on Tower Bridge, which made me think that the busier it is, the more of a problem there's likely to be. What's your route?

Cheers

Oliver

My route is from Notting Hill to Piccadilly Circus. The first part is along quiet, and not so quiet residential streets, then across Kensington Garden/Hyde Park on the cycle path then across Hyde Park Corner through the Duke of Wellington's Arch and finally along Piccadilly in the bus lane. Sometimes rather than going along Piccadilly I go down to Buckingham Palace along the cycle path and then along the Mall and up the steps and eventually to the bottom of lower Regent Street. I also Seg generally in central London with trips to the City etc. While I would undoubtedly be safer on the pavement, with the concentration of police in these 'high value target' areas of London I doubt I would go a day without being stopped. On the other hand, the speed of traffic is so slow that you are relatively safe on the road, in a way that would not be the case in outer London where the traffic is generally faster. I seg on roads where I feel safe on a bike. Interestingly, I was stopped by the police on the road in Clarkenwell a few days ago and they were absolutely fine about it and actually quite approving although they had to tell me 'officially' that I was technically using a motorised vehicle without permission. One of the concerns the officer raised was that of insurance- we agreed that until the Seg was legal, it was pretty hard to get insurance for third party risks. We really have to organise more legal lobbying- I know for example that the proposal for use of Segways by the Police in Sutton was stopped by a letter from the Department for Transport (peace and blessings be upon them) so we are still in Ostrich mode here. The security trial at Heathrow is starting soon so we should at least have a higher profile and it might educate and pressure some of the decission makers.

[ojflewis]

Thanks for the info. Perhaps we should organise a bit of a publicity blitz when we go through 1000 signatures on the petition? What is the security trial at Heathrow? I've heard it mentioned a couple of times but found no public info. That would make a nice media story.