Gliding in public

[yosgof]

I finally worked up the nerve to glide in public. Last Thursday I used my HT to commute to the office. It's about 15 minutes from home on a Segway.

If I could get $1 for each remark I got from bystanders it would have covered at least half the price of an HT. :D


- Yossi
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3365119-lg.jpg

[Zorba9]

Yossi do you have your red key yet? Did you find out why you only had black and yellow?

KOG

Zorba9.....

[adobephile]

As expressive and therefore most likely outgoing and gregarious a person as you are, I'm shocked to learn that you had to "work up the nerve" to glide in public! This makes me wonder how many actual Segway owners are languishing in some strange fear of "going outside" with their expensive contraptions. And, if this is true, I'm wondering if this isn't part of the problem "Segway Acceptance" is facing.



"The job of art is to chase ugliness away."
Bono, U2.
From a personal appearance
at an Apple Computer music event.
October 26, 2004

Daniel Swanson
http://www.van-garde.com

[pam]

Oh, Yossi has the nerve. ;)
Pam

[yosgof]

quote:Originally posted by Zorba9

Yossi do you have your red key yet? Did you find out why you only had black and yellow?

KOG

Zorba9.....


The Israeli Ministry of Transportation, which is the governing body of all things mobile, have granted the local dealer the right to import HTs to Israel under the restriction of not handing the red keys to the final users. This provision holds until October this year when they will review this policy.

Don't ask me why. This is Israeli red tape in all its glory.

Apparently they are concerned for pedestrian safety, so red key is outlawed. My key making equipment has shipped to Israel earlier today, so am expecting to have the full capability any time soon.

- Yossi
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3365119-lg.jpg

[yosgof]

quote:Originally posted by adobephile

As expressive and therefore most likely outgoing and gregarious a person as you are, I'm shocked to learn that you had to "work up the nerve" to glide in public! This makes me wonder how many actual Segway owners are languishing in some strange fear of "going outside" with their expensive contraptions. And, if this is true, I'm wondering if this isn't part of the problem "Segway Acceptance" is facing.



"The job of art is to chase ugliness away."
Bono, U2.
From a personal appearance
at an Apple Computer music event.
October 26, 2004

Daniel Swanson
http://www.van-garde.com


Unlike other places where the Segway issue is not yet directly addressed by regulation or legislation, in my case fear of the consequences of banding regulations rather than fear of the public is what I had to overcome.

As part of the sale, the local dealer made me sign a statement that I will only use the HT in “closed operational areas” and “privet premises”. So in order to glide on the pavements of Tel Aviv I had to work up the nerve to give this statement a very broad interpretation.

Now, just to make things clearer, I live in the center of Tel Aviv, right next to our government district and other public buildings. This makes my gliding easily observable by each and every Dick, Tom and Harry and their dog. So unlike people residing in small and friendly towns, I am completely exposed.

Thus the nervousness.

So far I’ve been gliding on weekends when no one’s around (this is Israel and everything is closed for the Shabbat and no cups around).

By commuting to the office on a week day and at office hours I may have upped the ante.

Oh… and Pam thanks for your remark. :D

- Yossi
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3365119-lg.jpg

[terryp]

Yossi,

I'm sure we're all hoping you won't have any trouble now that you're 'out in the open'. Someone has to give the government some statistics for their decision in October, and it looks like you're it!

Segway - What's holding you up?

[KSagal]

Yossi's been outed! Har har...

Two words of advise.

1. At an earlier segfest, I decided to have a green key programmed with red key characteristics. Don't ask me why, because I do not know. If Red key is specified anywhere, when you make your "red" key, just make it green or blue... (Or even yellow, with a black stripe) just to avoid the obvious appearance of a conflict.

2. When I first got my seg a couple of years ago, and to this day, I am happy to give demos. It has rarely caused me to re-think that all demos all the time is not a good plan. (Don't ask me about that one incident with my brother-in-law...)

Anyway, I went out of my way to give all the cops and town officials or legislative delegates demos. Often times, when you cannot get the police chief on the machine, his son the cop (what a surprise) or even the fire chief does just a well.

Regardless of their official position, I have yet to meet the person who is immune to that segway grin...

People with a positive perspective on your situation are far more easy to deal with, than those who you try to avoid...

One last thing, try not to get to a point where you ask an underling authority figure for permission. Act politly and positivly, and no one will feel the need to act with anything but the same. If you glide like you are doing something wrong, you will raise that question...

Sometimes, that little old lady that is grinning like she hasn't in 30 years, because at 80 she tried your machine, is the police chief's mother.

Good luck and have fun...

Karl Ian Sagal

Each road you travel should be just a bit better for having had you pass.

[adobephile]

quote:Originally posted by yosgof

quote:Originally posted by adobephile

As expressive and therefore most likely outgoing and gregarious a person as you are, I'm shocked to learn that you had to "work up the nerve" to glide in public! This makes me wonder how many actual Segway owners are languishing in some strange fear of "going outside" with their expensive contraptions. And, if this is true, I'm wondering if this isn't part of the problem "Segway Acceptance" is facing.



"The job of art is to chase ugliness away."
Bono, U2.
From a personal appearance
at an Apple Computer music event.
October 26, 2004

Daniel Swanson
http://www.van-garde.com


Unlike other places where the Segway issue is not yet directly addressed by regulation or legislation, in my case fear of the consequences of banding regulations rather than fear of the public is what I had to overcome.

As part of the sale, the local dealer made me sign a statement that I will only use the HT in “closed operational areas” and “privet premises”. So in order to glide on the pavements of Tel Aviv I had to work up the nerve to give this statement a very broad interpretation.

Now, just to make things clearer, I live in the center of Tel Aviv, right next to our government district and other public buildings. This makes my gliding easily observable by each and every Dick, Tom and Harry and their dog. So unlike people residing in small and friendly towns, I am completely exposed.

Thus the nervousness.

So far I’ve been gliding on weekends when no one’s around (this is Israel and everything is closed for the Shabbat and no cups around).

By commuting to the office on a week day and at office hours I may have upped the ante.

Oh… and Pam thanks for your remark. :D

- Yossi
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3365119-lg.jpg


Yossi, please believe me that I didn't mean any criticism against you. I have always considered you, rather, as a shining example of a free-spirited Segway owner, and was therefore surprised at your apparent (what I took to be) "bashfulness" at gliding in public. I had thought the various liberties we Americans take for granted to be common in your country as well. I simply wasn't aware of the particular nature of the environment in which you live as it affects Segway gliding.

You are, therefore, to be congratulated for your courage in asserting what must seem to all of us gliders our common-sense, if rather peculiar, form of freedom.



"The job of art is to chase ugliness away."
Bono, U2.
From a personal appearance
at an Apple Computer music event.
October 26, 2004

Daniel Swanson
http://www.van-garde.com

[woodenapple]

I live in a segway friendly town in a segway friendly state, but I still had to gradually work up the nerve to glide in public. On my first several commutes to work, I used the sidewalks along back streets and side roads where there isn't much traffic. I had to get used to gliding in public in limited view for a while before I was willing to go through high visibility areas.

Of course, that was 2 years ago, when segways were even more rare than they are now.

Shortly after college I outgrew the need to show off, so since then I have always tried to avoid drawing attention to myself. But now I go out of my way to expose the segway to as many people as possible - not to show myself off, but to help spread awareness of the wonders of the segway.

I may be different than many here on the Chat because I have never been an early adaptor of anything before. I simply saw the segway as a practical solution to my commuting needs, and had to work to get past my shyness before I could take it out in public.

Rodney

May all your days be Segway days!

[pam]

And you're so well known that even my boss has seen you!
Pam (who lives and works 2.5 hours away)

[yosgof]

quote:Originally posted by pam

And you're so well known that even my boss has seen you!
Pam (who lives and works 2.5 hours away)


Pam, so what's with the "no man is the boss of me"? ;)

- Yossi
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3365119-lg.jpg

[pam]

Everyone has bosses LOL. Mine's a woman. (But her's is a man.) Even my cats boss me.
Pam

[X-man]

Now I've heard it all - almost.
The red key evidently isn't kosher.

Bob.

"Every dog in office is obeyed with such unquestioning meekness, that every dog in office is tempted to become a cur."
William Hepworth Dixon - New America