Oft-Scorned Segway Finds Friends Among the Disabled
October 14, 2004
By RACHEL METZ
WHIRRING quietly down the sidewalk on East 42nd Street and
into a Starbucks one recent afternoon, Chandler Hovey drew
looks and comments from passers-by.
What was most eye-catching was his means of transport: the
Segway Human Transporter, a two-wheeled, gyroscopically
balanced electric scooter. What was less evident, except to
those close enough to spot the blue handicapped symbol on
his scooter, was that he is disabled.
Mr. Hovey, 63, a money manager, has multiple sclerosis. For
almost 18 months, his Segway has regularly transported him
the roughly 30 blocks from his home to his office. When he
is not using the Segway to dart around Manhattan, Mr. Hovey
uses a cane, which he hangs on the scooter's handlebars, to
help him maneuver around daily obstacles. But on the
Segway, he appears as able-bodied as those he is passing
by.
"Instead of being at fire hydrant height, you're at human
being height," he said of many users. Several hundred
people nationwide are using Segways to cope with
disabilities like scoliosis and arthritis and even missing
limbs, according to a group called Disability Rights
Advocates for Technology, or Draft, which is promoting such
use. Like Mr. Hovey, many have disabilities serious enough
to require assistance with walking, but not a wheelchair.
The Segway, which has been generally available since early
last year, is not approved (or marketed) for use as a
medical device. And it has drawn opposition and even
legislation in some cities over concern that its use on
sidewalks endangers pedestrians. But that has not deterred
disabled riders willing to pay $3,000 or more - a cost not
usually covered by medical insurance.
Leonard Timm, an above-the-knees double amputee and a
co-founder of Draft, said his group estimated the ranks of
disabled Segway users nationwide at 400 to 600. Often, he
said, they are using the Segway along with another device,
like a cane, wheelchair or a sit-down power scooter.
Mr. Timm modified his Segway to incorporate a wooden seat
he built that enables him to sit while riding. He is
working on a new aluminum seat.
Disabled Segway riders cite health benefits like improved
digestion and circulation. While their overall energy might
not improve, some say they can now concentrate their
efforts on things other than struggling to walk.
Thomas Cloke, a 60-year-old machinist from Taylor, Mich.,
with arthritis, said the scooter makes him less dependent
on his family. "I can take care of myself because of the
Segway," he said.
For some, the Segway is more comfortable than a wheelchair,
and it helps those with balance problems stay upright.
"It's just this incredible feeling for those that cannot
balance and when they stand up they feel like they're in
the midst of falling all the time," said Jerry Kerr of St.
Louis, a Segway rider with a spinal cord injury that left
him unable to walk, though he can stand to operate the
scooter.
There is also a psychological factor. Mr. Kerr said he is
no longer relegated to staring at people's rear ends, while
others said they simply feel less disabled while riding it.
Despite standing taller and whizzing instead of stepping,
the disabled do not draw as much attention to themselves on
the Segway as they would otherwise, Mr. Kerr said.
"There are people whose disabilities are rendered almost
invisible by using the Segway," he said. "People who have
been in wheelchairs for 20 years, people look at them and
don't know they're disabled."
But for those who have trouble walking on their own, that
is not always a good thing.
Kristin Hartman, 39, who sets up Web sites at the
University of California, Los Angeles, and trains faculty
members to use them, has multiple sclerosis and uses a
Segway to get around the campus and neighboring Westwood
Village. She has a handicapped sticker on her scooter, but
if people don't notice it or her disability, she might get
a nasty comment from passers-by who think she is just lazy,
she said. Most comments she and others get, however, tend
to be positive.
Draft encourages users to identify their disabled status on
their Segways, as many do with a blue wheelchair sticker.
Mr. Kerr displays a handicapped placard on his Segway, but
said many people are loath to do so.
To reduce anxiety over the prospect of being stopped from
riding, some disabled Segway riders carry a doctor's note
with them, explaining how the scooters help them.
Riders said they are rarely stopped or forbidden from using
their Segways in public spaces or businesses. Indeed, Mr.
Hovey was able to ride his scooter right into Starbucks and
up to the counter to order a drink. Ms. Hartman said she's
never been barred anywhere, although she was asked not to
ride in a Las Vegas hotel where she was staying. Mr. Kerr
has been stopped at Miami and Los Angeles hotels.
The Segway actually shares an inventor, Dean Kamen, with
another mobility-assisting device for the disabled: the
stair-climbing iBOT wheelchair. But while Johnson &
Johnson, under exclusive license, markets the iBOT
specifically to disabled users, Segway, the company behind
the scooter, has no plans to do likewise.
Carla Vallone, a Segway spokeswoman, said that while the
Segway is built to the same medical device standards as the
iBOT, it is not a medical device. Unlike the iBOT, it has
not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a
device for disabled users, and so may not be marketed as
such, she said.
"It's sort of like an unsought market for us at this point
- a market we did not seek to retain or build, but it has
come about on its own," Ms. Vallone said.
As a broader skirmish continues over whether and where to
permit Segway use, the issue of whether disabled riders
have any special right to use the scooters has not yet been
resolved.
Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, public places
and businesses have to meet certain standards of
accessibility that accommodate disabled visitors. Such
places must allow disabled visitors to use aids like canes
or wheelchairs, said Paul Steven Miller, a disability law
expert and law professor at the University of Washington.
But with two wheels, the Segway doesn't fit into the
definition followed by the United States Department of
Transportation in implementing the Americans With
Disabilities Act, which refers to a three- or four-wheeled
vehicle, said Bob Ashby, a lawyer with the agency's general
counsel's office.
The department has yet to form an opinion on Segway use, he
said.
Cities can bar general use of motorized vehicles on
sidewalks or in public places, he said, but would have
legal problems under the disabilities act and state laws if
they closed those spaces to people with motorized
wheelchairs.
Segway says 41 states have laws allowing the use of the
scooters on sidewalks, but some cities, like San Francisco,
have gone as far as banning nondisabled riders from using
the scooters in public places and at bus and train stops.
In New York City, the Segway falls into a gray area, said
Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat who is chairman
of the Transportation Committee. Mr. Liu said that a rider
using one in public could get a ticket, because state law
prohibits motorized vehicles - except those like
wheelchairs and three- and four-wheeled scooters for the
disabled - on sidewalks.
Still, "I think certainly that ticket would be
contestable," he said.
For now, Mr. Hovey and many others will just keep on
riding. "My life depends on that darn thing," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/technology/circuits/14segw.html?ex=1098784
365&ei=1&en=2a4d8c9af5cec4e0
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