Segways on the footpaths.

It's really funny that now that I'm working with heavy vehicles and dealing everyday with road access to some of the largest vehicles in Australia like ABB quads, the smallest of transportation vehicles caught my attention.

I am talking about Segways in Brisbane and electric bikes/scooters in the Gold Coast.  Just recently Queensland government announced that from 1 August 2013, approved Personal Mobility Devices (PMD) can be used on road related areas such as footpaths, bike paths and shared paths. At the moment Segway is the only PMD that has been approved but other similar devices like gyro-stabilised electric unicycles can be approved and until then can only be operated on private property.

There are certain conditions under which Segways are allowed to operate in Queensland. Those include among others the use of helmet (no surprises there), give way to pedestrians and having a warning device as a bell or horn. There is a speed restriction of 12km/h and you shouldn't be driving past a "PMD prohibited" sign.

Queensland police has adopted Segways on a 3 month trial for use on Brisbane's South Bank and Cairn's Esplanade. Officers are actually allowed to reach 20k/h when chasing a bad guy.

This whole PMD issue is not really new to Qld and Australia since mobility scooters, motorised disability wheelchairs and electric bicycles were allowed to travel on road and on the footpath for quite some time now. These vehicles need to achieve specific performance based standards and are limited to 200 Watt of power where the new PMD's don't have that limit. Segway seems to have far more power than that.

Other countries around the world allow Segways on the streets and footpaths under various conditions and contrary to the urban myth the inventor of Segway didn't die riding one of his inventions. 

And then, the other day while driving back from the beach at Surfers Paradise I saw a bunch of teenagers lane filtering and even moving from the pavement to the footpath on electric scooters. Those vehicles looked a lot like regular scooters although I noticed that they had pedals. It appears that they are available for hire without a drivers licence and they have less than 200 Watts of power.

They reminded me of my first vehicle the Honda Camino which I used to drive to school everyday between the ages of 16 and 17 back in Kavala Greece before I replaced it with the at the time very popular "ducks" Yamaha Townmate. They both had 50cc petrol engines and you needed a special drivers license issued by Greek Police to drive them.

 
As I said in an older blog post, I believe that scooters and even Personal Mobility Devices can provide better alternatives to urban travel than the car. And while I don't think that we will see a lot of Segways in the next years travelling on our footpaths it is certainly an idea worth exploring.