Met up with my old workshop TSO on my last Tuesday’s visit to school and since the Segway debate is still under the wraps of being a legal car alternative in Singapore, I will just touch on abit of the issue here, elaborating and stating the facts on how I find much our current country-wide strict regulations still being a strong deterrent factor for our youth to flourish their ideas and creativity.
Let be an isolated case, I was together with few current students there working on their final year project in the project area. Was told that they are working on a Segway pram project which involves modifying one together a speed regulation control as well with, yes you guessed it, with a baby pram attached. Knowing about the Segway, I told them about my concerns of it having children on board and the safety measures they can take on top of how it actually works and ride, together with the locking key for beginners and the unlock for maximum speed.
As fun and promising that project can be, actually half the battle of that project was already lost with our current Laws and Regulations in place- It’s also a fact that for the project to be successful, they have to get the green lights from the LTA and NEA for the Segway to be used on our sideways and parks, as laughingly worldwide, it is still not legal to ride a Segway human transporter in Singapore, go figure.
Their product can only see life within the confines of private parks and properties for now, even if their project is completely marketable, it will be a marketing nightmare to sell it here now. There seem to be more than it meets the eye, but it looks like they have to get the authorities to be aware of the Segway problem before moving any further in such developments.
In the meantime, we can always bring the ideas out of Singapore, after all, “foreign talent” can always take our places.
