There’s a Segway shop inside Hudson Homes on 1619 Walnut, just down the street from the Pitch offices, so we couldn’t help but notice a flock of Missouri Highway Patrol troopers getting lessons using the two-wheeled dorkmobiles.
Melissa Graham, a pretty, red-haired Segway tour director, says the Highway Patrol is renting four “units” to zoom around the 2007 Missouri State Fair August 9-19 in Sedalia. The sight of troopers on Segways will likely make a few people drop their funnel cakes and collapse in hysterics.
“It takes most people less than 10 minutes to get the hang of it. Very easy,” Graham says. Unfortunately, the lesson segment of the Segway tour was already over for the patrolmen, so there was no chance of filming any trooper bloopers.
The Segway store is on the move, too. Graham says that in about two weeks, it will relocate to a prominent space in Union Station. There, the archaic past of rail transportation can collide with the fake future. -- Nadia Pflaum
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I used one for work. They're fantastic. A lot of private security firms use them in downtown, I heard KCPD was looking at them. MAST uses them for event coverage. I have nothing but good things to say about them. Very cool things.
Oh, Nadia, we are just TOO COOL to accept Segways as police vehicles, are we?
Did you know there are more than 400 police and security agencies using Segways? Did you know that in New York an officer on a Segway caught a car thief? Did you know that a Segway can COMPLETELY replace use of a car for a normal commuter with sidewalks between their home and work?
Just because something technologically advanced "looks dorky" does not mean it should be ridiculed, dismissed, and joked on forever. Do you remember enough history from school to remember what the first automobiles looked like, compared to a gallant horse? Pretty dang ridiculous. The first bicycles? Pretty dorky looking too.
There is more to life than "looking cool" and maybe in a few years you will mature to the point to which you understand that. Good luck with that.