The future has arrived on our streets today

Today I had my first Segway Transporter sighting, two of them no less. Its been almost a year and a half since the first "It" and "Ginger" rumours were being bandied about. Now you can just plonk down your four grand and buy one on Amazon.

The Segway has gained a lot of notoriety for being banned from the sidewalks of many cities, most notably San Francisco. I am happy to report however, that the Segways I saw were zipping along the street and that they placed their riders high up, much higher than if you were standing in the street. The effect was the riders would easily be visible above most cars (not an SUV though), and were much more visible than a bike. That I would say, is a good thing and if bikes can be on the road then so should Segways. The only debate to be settled is whether they should be allowed to share bike lanes - I'd much rather see them there than on the sidewalk.

For the record I think the Segway is a good idea, albeit a massively over hyped one. Like Dean Kamen's self balancing wheelchair, its a great example of the appliance of science to bring a very new take on old subject - personal transportation. We've really had no great innovation in that area since the motor car at the turn of the 19th Century, and look what a disaster that was.

If people can find a convenient and relatively speedy way to make short journies at the end of a public transport ride I'm all for it. Lets have thousands of them available for rent at a llow cost and lets find a secure way to make them available without risk of theft. That's problem that has plague all schemes to make bikes available for free - someone, somwhere will place a value on the Segway to find a way to steal them. That's a sad reminder of the word we live in, but its hardly Kamen's fault and we shouldn't deride him for trying his best to get peoples butts out of their cars.

I'm a little disappointed that Kamen's many patents for innovations related to the Stiriling engine have not yet transpired. I still await fulfillment of the rumours that a Stirling engine powered version of the Segway would be available. That would be something truely worthwhile of s Nobel prize because a working, usable Stirling (external combustion) engine could really put an end to the internal combustion engine for good.