Do you know how the Segway boss died? Balance bikes are still a little bit behind in their road use

As a means of transportation that combines fashion and technology, balance bikes have been very popular among young people since they were launched. On the way to work, watching the teenagers riding "Hot Wheels" flexibly shuttle between congested lanes, do you also want to buy one immediately and live a happy life of environmentally friendly travel and no worries about traffic jams?

However, if you know the story of Jimmy Heselden, the boss of Segway, you might think twice. As the first company in the world to develop a self-balancing car, the boss of Segway actually fell to death while playing with his own self-balancing car!

It is reported that on September 26, 2010, Jimmy was riding his own company's electric balancing scooter near his villa in Spa Town, Boston, USA. He suddenly tripped and lost control on a mountain road, and then fell off a 9-meter-high cliff with the scooter and fell into the Wolf River and died. Although this is just an extreme case, it is a powerful reminder for fans of balancing scooters: calm down first!

How to choose a reliable balance car in the absence of hardware standards?

First of all, before buying a self-balancing scooter, it is a matter of life and death to do a thorough market research. According to CCTV Finance, there are thousands of self-balancing scooter companies in China, but due to the lack of quality standards and supervision mechanisms, the quality of products on the market is uneven, and some manufacturers are inferior, and there is a serious risk of battery explosion.

The chaotic state of the self-balancing vehicle market can be seen from the product list on the e-commerce platform. When searching for this product category, you will see all kinds of brands you have heard of or not heard of, as well as various products of different shapes, with prices ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Liu Haibo, deputy secretary-general of the Electric Self-Balancing Vehicle Industry Alliance and general manager of Shenzhen Free Wheel Intelligent Power Co., Ltd., said that the backgrounds of domestic self-balancing vehicle manufacturers are complex, ranging from mobile phone manufacturers to university research incubators to automotive products manufacturers.

According to people familiar with the matter, many of the balance bikes sold on Taobao are made in handmade workshops, without production lines, let alone quality standards.

How to choose a reliable balance bike? This problem not only troubles Chinese consumers, but also spreads across the ocean with "Made in China". It was not until the first quarter of this year that the United States and Australia successively issued import bans on balance bikes, and the lack of standards for smart balance equipment was improved.

It can be seen that formulating reasonable and unified hardware standards is the most urgent need in the current balance car market. At least consumers don’t have to worry about buying a balance car that will explode.

Who is responsible for frequent safety accidents caused by unclear product positioning?

In addition to charging safety, driving safety is also an unavoidable issue facing balance car manufacturers and users.

According to Southern Weekend, recently, several consumers of Xiaomi Ninebot have submitted a report on "possible product defects" of the Xiaomi Ninebot to the Defective Product Management Center of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, requesting an investigation into whether the Xiaomi Ninebot should be recalled. The cause of the incident was that the person involved fell and was injured in an accident while using the balance scooter. This is the first case of injury caused by a Xiaomi balance scooter.

The biggest controversy in this case is whether the cause of the accident was a product quality problem or a design defect. For the entire self-balancing scooter industry, the latter will bring a greater impact. Last week, a traffic policeman in Chengdu warned users of self-balancing scooters on the road for violating the Road Traffic Safety Law. Prior to this, the Chongqing Traffic Police Corps also issued a similar warning and stated that it would impose a fine of less than 50 yuan on self-balancing scooters that violated the regulations. In fact, they are all questions about the design of self-balancing scooters.

The self-balancing scooter was originally designed to meet the need for the last kilometer from the parking lot to the company. Obviously, the designer regarded it as a means of transportation. However, according to my country's Road Traffic Safety Law, electric self-balancing scooters are neither motor vehicles nor non-motor vehicles. They can only be used as a sliding tool, so they cannot be used on motor vehicle lanes, non-motor vehicle lanes, and sidewalks. The ambiguity in the definition of the self-balancing scooter's attributes is in turn one of the reasons why it is difficult to determine the liability for accident compensation.

Compared with formal means of transportation, the learning cost of a self-balancing scooter is much lower. Users with good balancing skills can easily get started in just three to five minutes, but personal control ability is not enough to justify the use of a self-balancing scooter. Judging from the current market situation and consumer cases, the self-balancing scooter is not yet a mature means of transportation, and parks may be more suitable for it at present.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.