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Also busted yesterday: Segway riders in the North End
By adamg on Tue, 10/11/2011 - 9:56am
Busted!
An alert citizen uses Citizens Connect to praise an unidentified city worker:
The gentleman in blue seems to be offering tourists on Segways citations as souvenirs of their tour. Boston Gliders should be ticketed every time they use the sidewalk and this is a good spot for it. They use the sidewalk for a large part of every tour but try to hide on the harborwalk, puopolo park, behind the aquarium, fan pier, where they think there is no enforcement.
The city banned Segways from parks and sidewalks in June; the owner of Boston Gliders, of course, promptly sued.
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Comments
If only ...
Pedestrians who can't be bothered to follow the rules were next.
Harbor Walk
It's great that I get to use this picture to prove that we are on the Harbor-walk! Which under title 91 the city has to provide access to the Harbor-walk.
In a few days it will all come to a head. Prediction all tickets gets dismissed, city is forced to re-write new law. Of course with out the discrimination, trade restriction and civil rights violations.
As always ready to serve,
Al Danley
Excellent to see them being handed out.
I really don't enjoy having to dodge them on sidewalks.
They don't bother anyone . . .
. . . who cares to put their name to it. I see em all the time- every day- and I have yet to see one single incident with car or pedestrian.
sometimes i'll walk along the
sometimes i'll walk along the harbor trail at lunchtime, and these groups often come zipping around the corners pretty quickly. you can't see them coming, especially at/around rowes wharf, and i've seen many instances where they've come close to plowing into runners or walkers.
We don't
Even let bikes ride on the sidewalks, let alone motorized scooters.
These things are vehicles and need to be kept in the road or in a designated "other" path.
Boston is a very busy pedestrian city. Let's keep it that way, and keep it safe.
This is great! Segway riders
This is great! Segway riders are not above the law.
Not above the law...unless they have disability papers
The city has banned Segways on the sidewalk as unsafe if driven by the able bodied, yet perfectly legal and "safe" for the sidewalk if driven by someone with paperwork showing they're disabled. Only in Boston would a physical handicap be a prerequisite to operate machinery that requires a significant degree of dexterity. Coming soon to Logan Airport, preferred runway clearance for blind pilots.
Really?
FDR couldn't walk, but he could still drive.
The Segway was invented by a guy who'd spent a lot of time figuring out how to let people who couldn't walk get around (before the Segway, he'd invented a wheelchair that could go up stairs).
Indeed
and the idea is that the handicapped that use segways, also have had proper instruction, and you know, time behind the wheel so to speak.
You don't just hand the keys to a car to a 12 year old, strap on a helmet and say "go", do you? Even a Bike for that matter.
THATS the issue.
fat lazy, uncoordinated tourists being thrown on vehicles they've never used before that can reach a top speed of 12.5MPH and expecting everything to be fine in areas where there's very, very heavy foot traffic all summer.
Have you taken a walk around the north end and seen these dolts? I've seen riders almost get clipped by cars, I've seen them not obeying stop signs and crosswalks, and I've seen them expecting people to get out of their way on busy sidewalks.
It a recipe for trouble. If they want to operate in the city, they should operate under the same rules as small engine scooters. There's really nothing hard about that. If they want to get places they can't via a road, they can step off and walk 15 feet for a better view.
Disability aside
But FDR couldn't stand, not without assistance of some kind.
I hate to be a disability doubter, but I really can not think of any disability that prevents one from walking yet lets you stand [without support, which Segways do not have]. Perhaps there is some very rare disability out there one does not normally hear of. But really doubt it, and if it does exist it would probably be in such rarity...
And those tourists using them are not generally disabled. They are just being lazy. It takes all of 15-30 minutes to walk from one end of their tour to the other.
But really the key issue isn't whether someone is disabled or not, whether Segways are hazardous to pedestrians or not, whether Segways are vehicles or not.
The key issue is that Segways are a horrible thing second only in their evilness to Hitler, Like rollerbladers in a skate park or dog walkers on a bike path, they should be eradicated by any means necessary, up to and including global thermonuclear war.
There is a solution to your knee-jerk ignorance
It is called GOOGLE, where you will find plenty about people with disabilities and how they use segways.
But, hey, don't let bigoted and lazy stupidity get in the way of actually forming an informed view of things when, hey, assumptions not informed by medical knowledge or information on reality are soooooo much easier!
I merely stated that while I
I merely stated that while I couldn't think of such a disability it was unimportant anyhow since Segways are the bane of all that is good and unicorns and rainbows. So relax with the name calling there. There is a difference between wondering and doubting if there is any such disability, and a universal hatred of a moronic conveyance system for the undisabled.
It's like if someone says their snake is a guide snake. You're not allowed to question the silliness of their claim because it might offend them. Sheesh.
Also re-Kaz's post about MS being one of the such disabilities. As far as I knew even mild-MS results in leg issues, coordination issues, and eyesight issues. All of which make a Segway hardly the ideal tool.
Anyhow it doesn't matter. The argument that because a few people out there might be helped by the assistance of evil technology does not mitigate that technologies use by the masses, particularly those not disabled.
"As far as you knew..."
...is the whole point. You made a pretty rash and absurd statement about not knowing any way Segways could help the disabled. You went out of your way to describe such a situation as being so rare as to be meaningless in your estimation. That's a pretty bold statement that, regardless of whatever else you unrelatedly concluded afterwards about Segway use for other people, you need to accept as being completely wrong and wrong-headed.
MS is a progressive disease with a wide range of symptoms. Somewhere between unaffected and total paralysis is where most people lie on the scale. In that middle ground, it may express as fatigue (not "I need a nap" but "My muscles are weary and won't move right"). Even walking a good distance itself might be a stressful trigger that causes further onset at the time. Eyesight trouble comes and goes depending on the day and the relapse.
The Segway is the perfect tool. Most with relapsing MS can stand and may walk with difficulty, but not far. The Segway would allow them an extended range and there's even an attachment chair that can be bought for the extra difficult days. There are whole blogs and websites dedicated to successful Segway use by those with MS.
And it does matter. If it's an exceptional tool for the disabled, then there's more reason to suggest leaving it alone even for the masses. It's much like biking. The masses screw up with the rules of the road on a bike...should we take them away from the couriers because it's best to just cut it off at the knees?
Logical But Off Target?
Your points are valid and make sense. However you must understand that Segways ARE being used primarily by perfectly able bodied people. One should be equally offended if able bodied people were using electric wheel chairs to do tours of the city.
And I don't necessarily agree with the no questions asked ADA rule. That allows for some pretty flagrant abuses. We require people to display HV plates when using the spaces, otherwise how else does one know when someone is abusing the space by parking there without a reason. Why can't a person be asked if they have a special Segway license or be not allowed to use one at all?
Segways have no place in the commons of transportation. They are to be universally despised as a stupid and dorky means of transportation because their primary user is not the disabled but the stupid and dorky able-bodied. Not hating on Segways is like not hating all mimes because one of them happens to be a philanthropist.
Plenty of able-bodied people tour the city with motorized help
Ever see a tour bus? How about a car?
Your outrage is puzzling.
Let the disabled have Segways
Cars and Tour Buses don't typically plow down the sidewalk yelling at people to get out of their way while twisting around to take souvenir pictures of the people behind them. This tour company and many of their tour guides operate in a dangerous and disrespectful manner. Boston Gliders breaks the law every day by operating their tours on the sidewalks. If they have ever been issued a license to offer Segway tours, it should be revoked.
Talking about disabilities is a red herring. The real issue is that this company continues to break the law and endanger public safety. Disabled people can continue to operate their Segways on the sidewalks, but the sooner this company is shut down, the better it will be for everyone -- except the greedy, lawbreaking owner of Boston Gliders!
just because you can't think of one...
...doesn't mean those disabilities don't exist. it is a very different set of muscles that allow you to walk than allow you to stand, and the two are not synonymous. and, in fact, standing can help your muscle strength, if damaged, and in the long-term prevent atrophy and other wasting problems.
the most recent newsletter from the Commonwealth on disability topics has an interesting article about Kevin Lambert. kevin used a segway for mobility assistance after being injured in Iraq. he was one of the people who helped change the official policy in the state regarding the use of segways for the disabled.
you can check it out here (warning: PDF). also contains the specifics of the segway policy.
Arthritis. Very common. My
Arthritis. Very common.
My dad's only in his 60s but has such bad arthritis in his knees that he can barely walk. Yet standing is not a problem, and he currently works a job where he stands for hours at a time.
We sadly can't do walk around town together anymore. He loves history, and it would be great to do the Freedom Trail, but he can't walk it. We did a great trolley tour a few months ago, but I did think about booking him a space on a Segway tour. While I'm still not 100% sold on Segways myself, they'd be less humiliating for my dad than a Rascal or wheelchair.
Multiple Sclerosis
Consider yourself served. Also, it's not rare.
Exemption for the disabled is absurd
If Segways are dangerous on the sidewalk, they are dangerous on the sidewalk, period. How are they less dangerous on the sidewalk when operated by a disabled person, or has political correctness and
whiteable-bodied guilt run so far amok that pedestrians must accept the risk of personal injury as a form of repairations to the disabled? Disabled motorists must comply with the same laws as the non-disabled. So should disabled Segway users.Mr. Sunshine
It must be a real fuckin picnic to sit next to you at a bar.
By this same reasoning wheelchairs should be kept off sidewalks as well. I mean even if it's not motorized...we make bicyclists walk their bikes on sidewalks. People with no legs should have to just drag them selves along the ground or roll in the street with the rest of the wheeled vehicles. Who do these damn people think they are?
Bigotry, Arrogance, Ignorance
Funny how they all seem to go together!
can they start giving tickets
can they start giving tickets to tourists for other forms of embarrassing transportation? Forget the duck-tours, how about the "romantic" idiots riding around in horse drawn carriages? Nice steaming piss puddles they make. Or how about the bike rickshaw things, do they get to whip the driver? Of course you'd want to go after every douche bag who travels via the Bus-tonian party bus complete with keg cups and purple strobe lights.
I just don't get those horse drawn carriages
Do people actually have a good time riding around in those? All they do is go at an excrutiatingly slow speed through congested, traffic filled city streets. It's not very scenic and it's hardly romantic. The horses look very depressed.
Well . . . .
. . . I see the Segway tour people now have their tours on the street- slowing traffic considerably on Commercial Street and Atlantic Ave on occasion.
They intentionally slow traffic
They choose not to ride single file as the law allows, but ride 3 and 4 across in traffic on their way to the harborwalk parks, which is dangerous for motorists as well as the tourists on segways. I saw a tour blocking traffic on Atlantic Ave. and at the back of the pack was a little kid who couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 years old. Boston Gliders will keep violating the law, disregarding public safety and doing whatever they want to make a buck, until the City shuts them down. Luckily they keep providing the City with evidence to deny them a license and/or impound the segways as the law allows.