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Comment by leetrout | Hacker News Reader

I had the same experience. They are so much fun.

The tour I did in DC had 3 accidents in 75 minutes with ambulances called for two of them. It was wild.

> The tour I did in DC had 3 accidents in 75 minutes with ambulances called for two of them. It was wild.

Sorry I have to ask but this reads weird to me, but do you mean accidents in DC or accidents with 3 people from your tour?

Leetrout did a segway tour in DC. On that tour, there were 3 accidents in 75 minutes. Presumably with people on the tour.

Yes, three people on the tour crashed, two of them required an ambulance.

Wow that is unfortunate, thanks for the clarification, I'm not familiar with the area or Segways, though I do go to DC every few years for the museums.

The first accident was coming down 15th by the treasury where there are large bollards on the sidewalk- an older gentleman in his sixties was zipping around and he went full speed down the sidewalk and clipped the wheel on the very edge of one and it spun around throwing him off- very much like going over the handlebars on a bike. I assume he broke something between his wrist and collar bone (or both).

The next one was going off a sidewalk if memory serves but was minor.

The third one was over on the north side of the Capitol- we were idling around while the guide was talking and this older lady in her fifties or sixties was kinda floating through the crowd but didn't seem out of control- she went around this big tree and either lost control or wasn't paying attention as it was getting dark and went full speed around the side of a tree and ran right in to a lamp post. It knocked her out.

I was getting nervous riding back feeling like we were all going to experience some mishap.

Your life has the plot of a Loony-Tunes short.

Kinda feels like age of the people may have been a factor here. Segways do require good reaction times and constant awareness of your surroundings because they don't stop (even when stationary they have power to the wheels keeping them balanced, and if you move they move) and it the tour guide thought anyone was too young, old, or otherwise not capable to control the vehicle, they shouldn't have let them go out in public.

Not saying that was the only factor, it could easily have been the tour guide not giving adequate safety instructions or simply people ignoring those instructions... or a mixture of all three!

This reminds me, I should probably do a Segway tour on the National Mall before the last ones fail. Segway tours are a lot of fun.

I definitely recommend it! The tour I did went around the tidal basin and visited all the major monuments on the western half of the mall. I really enjoyed the stories and factoids from the tour guide—she pointed out a lot of stuff I had missed on self-guided walking tours. I think the tour agency to was somewhere near the GW campus, but I forget the name.

Did y'all wear helmets?

Yes, bicycle helmets.

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