

Segway's owner dies in accident after riding one of his Segway off a cliff - bjonathan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315518/Jimi-Heselden-killed-Segway-accident.html?ITO=1490

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darklajid
From the article it seems that this was one remarkable and generous man, which
makes the accident even more tragic.

On the technical side of things I wonder what the consequences for the Segway
brand will be. It always seemed to me as if the iBot was a Good Idea (tm)
which lead to a mere novelty toy for polo games. If this accident leads to
accusations concerning the safety of these rides (quite probable imo, being a
media cynic) this probably has the potential to hurt quite a bit.

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chopsueyar
He owns the company. Do you think the media will blame Segway for his death?

Certainly not his family.

Quite unfortunate.

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patio11
"Segway company owner killed by own Segway" is virtually irresistible as a
media narrative.

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sp332
If he drove his car off a cliff and died, would the headline be "Porche killed
Segway owner"?

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lylejohnson
It might. Rogue SUVs kill people all the time (cf. "SUV hits, kills Md. Green
Party Senate candidate,"
[http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h8FiQb29HT...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h8FiQb29HTCIpW1sm_rFbQXmPlCwD9ICF6702))

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jpr
No, they don't. People driving them kill people.

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raganwald
It is clear that the challenge is to find a way to give free reign to the
intellectual curiosity while studiously ignoring the lurid temptation of
discussing the faux-irony of his death.

Ok, I'll bite. How about using GPS to make a safety feature where the Segway
will not ride within a certain distance of "dangerous" features like sea
cliffs? An override such as turning a master key would be required.

Such a feature could also help deter theft: Segways designed to be used on a
single property would not operate outside the property, something like the
locks on shopping carts.

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brk
What is the irony? That he died while riding a Segway PT? Have no avid
cyclists been killed on bikes? Have no automotive execs been killed in car
crashes? Have no test pilots been killed in flight?

Face it, there are many hazards in life, and it stands to reason that owners
and high-profile individuals in all kinds of positions stand to be killed or
harmed by their technology.

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megablast
In fact, it is more likely for an avid cyclist to die on a bike, a motorhead
to die driving, and a test pilot to die in flight, than normal. This makes
sense. It is the opposite of irony, obvious.

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CWIZO
This seems very odd to me. I mean this things don't travel that fast, couldn't
he jumped (stepped?) off of it? Sad story :(

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darklajid
You can easily injure yourself on one. You might find some Youtube videos that
show it in painful details, I've watched some people go down live. Usually
this only happens if you do something risky or dumb (one example is if one of
the wheels gets temporary stuck/runs free from my experience). In that case no
- you won't just jump off. I'd more describe it as being thrown off..

The original article (as I mentioned in the dupe thread of this news already)
has a comment that suggests that a medical emergency (heart attack, for
example) might have lead to the whole accident. Sounds reasonable at first.

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sharmajai
While never having ridden any of these things. It seems to me they have an
obvious design fault while riding on a decline, where gravity pulls you
forward which leads to the snowball effect of increasing your speed
indefinitely.

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dandrews
There is no coasting or "snowball effect" - the Segway is not a freewheeling
device. The wheels only do what the computers tell the motors to do.

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sharmajai
May be I wasn't clear earlier, what I meant was not freewheeling but gravity
pulling the PERSON forward which makes him/her lean forward and hence the
segway style acceleration.

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mikemol
Gravity doesn't pull you forward, it pulls you down. Unless a particular human
never learned to walk or sit upright, their natural tendency in balance is to
hold themselves in-line with gravity*, not necessarily at a perpendicular
angle to the surface they're standing on. (There is some input from the eyes,
which trick house attractions and the like exploit, but we're usually pretty
good about it.)

This is what learning balance is all about, and most of us pick it up by the
time we're two years old. Segways detect the human riders' effort at balancing
(which most do without effort or awareness), and exploit it.

