Now I’m sure that other people are out there on the Streets of San Francisco (™, a Quinn Martin Production) commuting to work on a Segway scooter, but this guy, this guy*, he’s the man. Why? Staying power, baby. He’s been doing it for while. With style.
Note the black suit, black gloves, stick-it-to-the-Man lawyer’s ponytail(?), saddlebag, auxilliary lighting – it’s got to be the same dude I used to see years ago on Market Street. Apparently, he has a safe and convenient way of storing his rig at home and at work, and he’s worked out a good-enough system for safekeeping while performing errands. Good for him.
Click to expand. On Market crossing problematic Octavia Boulevard, San Francisco’s Greatest Public Policy Disaster of the 21st Century**
You see, he’s not riding on the sidewalk, not tromping on the grass, not riding on the train tracks, not clowning around in Golden Gate Park like Lily, not skylarking himself into a painful (at the very least – that poor, poor woman) faceplant, not killing himself at 5 MPH, not playing soulja boy, and not wearing a tuxedo while escorting a high-heeled woman(!) to the exclusive Black and White Ball.
In short, the man has his dignity.
Quite unlike Gob, for another example:
Truth be told, the San Francisco man you see in the first photo is using the cleverly-designed Segway exactly as it was meant to be used. (There was some issue before about allowing Segways on sidewalks, but all the effort by a bunch of lobbyists failed. So, the street is where these things belong, apparently.)
The problem Segway Inc. has is that there was no way IT (a former name, along with “Ginger”) could possibly live up to the hype that came from Segway Inc. and Various Famous People.
But that’s ancient history now. What’s the future of the Seqway PT? Only Time Will Tell.
*Note the use of a Canon 135mm 2.0 lens avec full-frame digital camera. The key is to use this combo wide-open, so you use either Aperture Priority or Manual Mode to set the lens to f/stop 2.0. (That’s the full Clockwork Orange setting, no squinting allowed.) You end up with a diffuse, fuzzy background (depending on geometry of where you’re standing, etc.) and clear view of whatever you focused upon, assuming the not-so-hot auto focus feature of your Canon 5D (Mark II or Mark I) got the job done. This special kind of look is why some people get digital SLR cameras.)
**So far. The NIMBYs of Hayes Valley have nine decades left to top themselves.
