Gov't Recalls All Segway Scooters

Washington Post ^ | 9/26/03 | Jonathan D. Salant

[TastyManatees]

Gov't Recalls All Segway Scooters
The one-person, battery-powered Segway scooter was first unveiled in December 2001. (Courtesy Segway)
By Jonathan D. Salant
Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 26, 2003; 1:14 PM

The maker of the Segway Human Transporter has agreed to recall the motorized scooters because riders have been injured falling off when its batteries are low.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall Friday, saying that three people had been injured. One suffered a head wound and needed stitches.

The recall involves about 6,000 of the single-rider, two-wheeled scooters that can travel up to 12 mph. The scooter uses gyroscopes to keep it upright, making it less likely to fall or be knocked over.

But the CPSC said that scooters being operated with low battery power may not have enough power to remain upright, causing the rider to fall.

[TastyManatees]

So, people need to be told by the government that if they let the batteries run down on their electrically-controlled gyroscopes, the gyroscopes do not work?

Tasty Manatees

[justlurking]

Sorry, I thought the search would return articles in reverse-date order. When this didn't pop to the top, I posted the complete CPSC bulletin:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/990187/posts

[Bubba_Leroy]

A helpful customer review from Amazon.com"

Great fun for the kiddos!, September 17, 2003

Reviewer: An electronics fan from Kanagawa, Japan

Yeah, I bought a few of these for the kids for Xmas and they absolutely love them! They box is pretty bulky and wouldn't fit easily under a normal Xmas tree, so we had to get a 50 foot Xmas tree instead. No worries, though: the ceilings in our main house are 20 meters high. Johnny, our oldest rugrat, has expecially taken to the thing. He has some fairly challenging behavioural disourders (which he inherited from his mothers genes, NOT mine, mind you) and he ended up riding the thing into our Olympic-sized swimming pool, but not to worry: Amazzon's return policy covered it and we were able to get a replacement at no charge. Billie-Joe, our second sprog, has taken to riding his Segway on his half-pipe skate ramp. After some modifications by our Afro-American mechanic, Mr. Belvedere, BJ's Segway now has enough power that he can do off-the-lips, rib slides, and "360s" with his Segway. Alls I gotsta say is, the Segway is segWAY COOL! And you can quote me on that.

[browardchad]

Well, considering the massive casualties -- three by the latest count -- it's about time the Federal government acted to protect the public.

Stairs are next.

[DManA]

If I'm going down the street at 10 mph and the next instant I'm in the bushes, I'd be on the phone to Segway as soon as the bells stopped ringing.


(sorry, I didn't mean to send you a private msg. Clicked the wrong button.)

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

LOL! If that's real, it has to be a liberal. The elitist tone is set with the whole thing about the size of the house(super high ceiling, Olympic size pool), but really takes off with the crack about his wife's gene pool being responsible for his kid's mental condition(of course, it couldn't be the same dain bramage that causes liberalism, could it?).

[BaBaStooey]

That is fricken classic.

This whole Segway recall business is hilarious too, by the way.

[pabianice]

I guess some Naderite lawyer fell off his. So now everyone gets to suffer. Way to go, Liberals!

[Frapster]

It looks like satire to me.

[Rodney King]

LOLOLOLOL. I don't know why I am so happy that the Segway is a flop, but I am.

[randog]

Segway ought to turn lemons into lemonade with a new ad campaign--"12 to 0 in a nanosecond!".

[Mike Darancette]

The maker of the Segway Human Transporter has agreed to recall the motorized scooters because riders have been injured falling off when its batteries are low.

Harley Davidson is recalling all of it's Motor Cycles because riders have been injured falling off when they run out of gasoline.

Idiot Government, Idiot people.

[RobFromGa]

All this media blitz about Segways and they've only sold 6,000 of the things. Amazing. That is a total of $30 million in sales total-- The equivalent of about 1000 cars.

This is the classic Product in search of a market. There is no market,

The only market I see is in large factories to move around efficiently, but we already have carts and they allow you to take tools and briefcases along for the ride so it isn't a big leap forward. In cities, forget it. Where do you drive them.

The whole Segway thing is anti-car wacko-environmentalism.