Segway death blamed on good manners
Typical act of courtesy
Posted in Management, 15th July 2011 14:34 GMT
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Jim Heselden, the Segway owner who died late last year after toppling from one of the scooters, likely fell from the cliff because he was getting out of the way of a man walking his dog.
He fell more than 40 feet from a footpath above a river near Boston Spa, close to his home.
Sean Christie was out walking his dog. He told Leeds coroner's court that Heselden backed his scooter off the path as he approached him. He then wobbled and fell backwards, according to the BBC. He later found Heselden lying dead in the river below.
The coroner said: "I think it's probable, I think typical of Jimi and the type of man he was, he held back and waited as an act of courtesy to allow Mr Christie more room. In so doing he's attempted to reverse the Segway back. As a result of that he has got into difficulty."
He recorded a verdict of accidental death. There was no fault with the scooter or suspicion of foul play.
Heselden was a generous donor to several local charities and causes connected to the Armed Forces.
62-year old Heselden bought Segway Inc in 2010. He was better known as a philanthropist and the man behind Hesco Bastion- which makes Concertainers - the giant chicken-wire boxes filled with rubble. They were originally designed for strengthening flood defences but found a secondary use as defensive walls for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Project Ginger, as the Segway was codenamed, swept the web with more hype than an Apple tablet back in 2001. With no more information than apparent investment from Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, the web went wild for Dean Kamen's invention. It was going to change the shape of cities and be more important than the PC – that was according to Jobs. In reality the machines have hardly made an impact. A few fat US patrol officers and mall security guards can now scoot round the mall without using any calories.
One Reg hack believes he saw a pair of two wheel ploddies patrolling Dublin airport last year, but he was very, very hungover at the time. ®
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COMMENTS
And they're illegal on British roads and pavements
except on private property. These are the rules, and have been since 1605 when it was first made illegal to travel by witchcraft. An exception was made about a hundred years ago for headless horse carriages powered by an infernal cacodemon engine.
Re: Pure and Simple
In whichever gutter you spend most of your time it may be unfashionable to show courtesy and respect to other human beings, but you could at least show the memory of the deceased some respect. By many accounts, this was a decent and accomplished man who suffered a tragic accident. Your self-congratulatory and puerile jibes may be part of your typical behavioural routine but they are inappropriate and disrespectful here.
Am I the only one...
... that finds the juxtaposition of the last section in this story somewhat tasteless in a report about a man's death? This is not a "Darwin award" death, but an unfortunate accident to someone who was, by all accounts, a generous and kind person.
Sorry, El Reg, but for me you got the tone of this report wrong.
Don't knock what you don't understand.
For a lot of people with cerebral palsy or spinal cord injuries the Segway represents an order of magnitude of improvement over crutches or a wheelchair. Compared to getting around in a wheelchair, using the Segway is a huge improvement for anyone able to use it - all of a sudden you are looking *at* people - instead of *up* at people. I've used both and I'll take a Segway any day of the week (I'm not disabled but I've worked all my life with a lot of people who are disabled).
I've seen them in use at several airports in the USA and a lot of US police forces are starting to use them in relatively dense urban environments - you can laugh all you want to about "fat cops" who should be on foot but if you need a cop which would you prefer - one that just ran 500 yards to get to you, or one fresh off a Segway? You can carry an extensive first-aid kit on a Segway ... think about it.
Locally they are used by the water meter readers who used to drive cars from house to house to read the meters - the Segway has lower carbon emissions than a car idling by the side of the road.
Plods on Segways
Presumably fugitives escape from them by running down or up stairs - just like Daleks.
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