More about the Segway

The Segway experience was so interesting and exciting for me that I can't yet forget the control feeling. What makes this lawn mower like vehicle innovative is that it is mainly controlled by a computer and all the riders have to do is leaning to their heading. Sure, there are lots of computer assisted vehicles such as airplanes, trains, cars and so on, but they are all controlled mainly by human and primitive physical law and computers only work as assistants; the so called hi-tech airplanes actually can be flown without pilots, but they are indispensable as a back-up and the person in charge, and some ways are always left in which they can fly them without computers. As far as I know, all the vehicles can be controlled by human at least at the last moment in case of emergency. Only the exception is state-of-the-art jet fighters which have swing wings and cannot fly without computer controls. As I mentioned before, I hope someday Segway can run on the public roads in Japan, but I think it's natural that Japan's government is prudent to permit it because no one can assure that it is always safe. Computers and software are not so reliable that we can't commit ourselves to this vehicle.

Comments

[donna]

How do you control the speed? I too am intrigued by the Segway and would love to try one out. I see some on the streets here in California.

[mochi]

donna,

As you might know, Segway has no breaks and accelerators. All the control of Segway is done by pushing the handle towards your favorite heading. If you push it harder, Segway runs faster and you look pitch forward on it. In terms of the speed of Segway, it has turtle mode in which the maximum speed is limited to 10 km/h while the normal mode is 20 km/h.

[donna]

I didn't know it didn't have brakes. Thank you for the information. Sounds like a lot of fun.