What is a Segway?

Answer 1

A Segway is a 2 wheeled Electric Personal Assistive Mobility Device (EPAMD). The user stands atop the Segway's platform, with its two wheels flanking them on the left and right.

The device works on a deceptively simple principle, though complex to implement correctly. To demonstrate to yourself the principle, lift an ordinary household broom in the air so that the brush is at the top and you are balancing the broom on a single finger at the bottom. You will quickly find you are moving your hand as well as your body around in a effort to keep your finger directly under the changing position of the broom head.

In the case of the Segway, you are the broom and it is the finger. You cannot tilt sideways because of the flanking wheels, but you can tilt either forward or backward. Should you tilt forwards, the Segway will quickly move its platform under you. Should you tilt backwards, the Segway will glide backwards, again keeping you (specifically, your center of gravity) directly above the platform.

Looking at the same behavior from the user's point of view, standing still on the Segway will result in no movement, while leaning forward will cause the Segway to move forward, with the greater the lean, the faster the movement. Leaning back will first bring the Segway back to rest, then result in the device backing up.

Oscillation: Some people, when first standing on a Segway, will experience a kind of bucking behavior, as the Segway rapidly shifts between dancing slightly forward and backward. This results from the Segway attempting to get under the user while, at the same time, the user is attempting to get over the Segway. (Some observers have seen some correspondence between the new user's historical psychological need for control and the amount of bucking that takes place. This cries out for a small university study.) Once the new user relaxes and relinquishes control to the Segway, usually within five or ten seconds, the effect vanishes instantly.

What the Segway isn't: It is not a "scooter" and it is not a "vehicle," as defined by the law. A person plus the Segway atop which they are perched are collectively considered to be a pedestrian in most jurisdictions, allowing the Segway user (the Segway "glider") to travel on streets, sidewalks, and anywhere else a pedestrian would be permitted.

Segway sales have been limited by a strange paradox. Generation One Segways plopped the user atop the device's platform, where they remained, never moving except by slightly leaning for the duration of the ride. As a result, they looked like, to use the technical term, a dork. (Generation Two devices now have the rider lean to turn ("lean-steer"), making the stylish rider look a bit like a skier doing a slalom course.)

The experience of actually being on the Segway is radically different from the casual viewer's observation, hence the paradox. The gliders (riders), themselves, feel like superheroes. First, you are close to a foot taller than you have ever been. Second, you are able to "run" at 12.5 mph for 24 miles without even breaking a sweat. Unlike a bicyclist, you can come to a full stop without danger of falling over, so you can become completely enveloped in a crowd, then shoot forward out of it like the aforementioned superhero, spinning away toward new and exciting adventures as the people left far behind can only stare in awe. (This ending part requires a certain level of denial.)

A word of caution: The safest way to avoid the danger of buying a Segway is to never get on one. Many people who've taken repeated Segway tours have eventually ended up $5000 poorer, even if they spend every weekend grinning while perched on their Segways, either gliding around seeing new sights from their high vantage point (great for peering over fences) or traveling the Segway Polo circuit (it is now an international sport), getting down and dirty with Generation Two Segways as they battle it out for a chance at the World Cup.

(The above answer was written by a Segway owner who has no affiliation with Segway or any enterprise making money off Segways. He and his wife, however, are happy Segway owners, even if they are $10,000 poorer. It all started out with a tour of Paris....)