Roosevelt Island Easy Riders - Segways for Public Safety Officers

Image from RIOC

RIOC has purchased two Segway Personal Transporters for officers of the Public Safety Department. According to Roosevelt Island Public Safety Director Keith Guerra, the Segways are useful because:

... Besides allowing officers to move expeditiously in the street, they were also able to navigate on sidewalks and even through the halls of the residential buildings here on Roosevelt island.

During a test drive through the halls of Eastwood, an officer riding a Segway made an arrest for criminal trespass.

In 2007 the New York Police Department purchased 10 Segways. From the NY Times:

...the two-wheeled Segways are to be deployed today as patrol vehicles on pathways and boardwalks in parks, at beaches and at stadiums, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a news conference yesterday.
... “Their obvious advantages are visibility and mobility,” Mr. Kelly said. He was referring to the battery-charged agility of a Segway, which can roll up to 12.5 miles per hour, and to the imposing stature the devices tend to give officers, who are eight inches off the ground and ride standing up.
... Such use of Segways by anyone else would be against the law. Despite several recent attempts in Albany to define a Segway as a vehicle that can be legally registered and insured, the rules of the State Department of Motor Vehicles do not even acknowledge the existence of a battery-operated, stand-up scooter capable of carrying one rider. Should it be allowed on the sidewalks? The streets? Legislators disagree.

It would be interesting to know how NYPD evaluates the Segway.

Here's a You Tube video of the Segway Police.


Segways have been on Roosevelt Island before. Remember the Segway Polo match.

Also, though they never made it to Roosevelt Island, two friends decided to make a movie and travel across America from Seattle to Boston in a 21st century Segway version of Easy Rider:

10 MPH is a comical documentary that follows a pair of aspiring filmmakers as they quit their jobs and turn a friend's ludicrous idea into a movie. The impulsive purchase of a two-wheeled Segway scooter sets this story in motion when the two friends decide to travel from Seattle to Boston at 10 mph in an attempt to change their lives forever... What ensues is a road trip like none other with a haphazard cast of characters you could only find on a zany 100-day trek through America's back roads. Each poignant story the two friends discover along the way inspires a craving inside to go out and do that thing you're supposed to do.

You can watch 10 MPH on You Tube or go view the film and register for a free account with Our Stage who will then donate $1 to the filmmakers to help them finance their next movie.

Here's the opening scene from Easy Rider with Born to be Wild soundtrack via You Tube.