From the Chico Enterprise Record
This is another one of those “brilliant” sustainable ideas by the sustainability cabal at Chico State University (inspired by Dr. Mark Stemen) gone horribly wrong.
Looking at the photo, you just have to laugh. Cops on electric scooters? Maybe on April 1st.
You just have to laugh, then be angry about the waste in taxpayer money ($2499 each plus shipping) for this farce. At least I don’t see the lights and siren kit ($550) on these silly things.
Unplugged: Chico State University Police getting rid of electric scooters
CHICO — Twenty-nine months ago, they seemed like an idea whose time had come.
Chico State University was building on a major sustainability campaign, and going green with electric patrol scooters seemed like a way the University Police Department could support the effort in a very visible way.
In October 2009, the department acquired three new police scooters from Diggler, a Petaluma-based company, with the intention of using them to augment campus foot and vehicle patrols, and for parking enforcement.
…
Their economy, with an operating cost of about one cent per mile, couldn’t be challenged, and was a big selling point.
Something seemed out of place from the start, however. As officers jumped on the stand-up scooters for their first trial runs, they looked, and seemed to feel, less official and more vulnerable than on a bicycle or even on foot.
…
Starting Saturday, the three scooters will be up for online bid at Bid.Cal.com. Not only have they discontinued the use of them, they are getting rid of them and in a hurry.
Full Story at ChicoER.com Unplugged: Chico State University Police getting rid of electric scooters
I’m reminded of this:
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Someone tell them about a recent invention called a Bicycle. Costs 0¢/mile to run and may even make fat Yank coppers lose some weight.
Probably go faster than those scooters and are more stable.
Chortle.
Snort.
Oh, heck, guffaw.
🙂
So they ditched human powered bicycles in favour of electric powered scooters with toxic batteries and did so on the basis of it being “green”.
One word comes to mind: morons.
Scooters and guns…
When I was in school, the debate was over arming the police. For a time, the campus police had cars…but no guns. I think I would prefer armed cops on mopeds, but that is just me…and from the picture…it doesn’t look like they are parked in front of Dunkin Doughnuts…
“At least I don’t see lights and siren on these silly things.”
I’m sure they had a ‘thumb actuated bell’ on them. Their merry ‘ting -a -ling-a -ling’ is so commanding and authoritative!
Poor Chris Cherry (Civil and Environmental Engineering assistant prof at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville) will be mortified.
Sustainability is another green slogan-word. Nothing in our universe is sustainable.
This is what they should have bought…
Step out of the car…wait a minute while I lean my scooter….hey! Come back here!
Let me guess…the company won a bunch of environmental awards and lots of pols had their photos taken during plant tours!
Re: Adam Gallon
> Someone tell them about a recent invention called a Bicycle
From the linked article:
The University of Utah is selling (sold?) two all-electric “trucks” it had bought for groundskeeping. Apparently, when you actually load the bed with stuff, you greatly reduce the range, and you can’t go uphill, which are distinct disadvantages for a large campus built on a hillside.
What is the battery range of a Volt carrying 5 adults and luggage — in San Francisco?
Sorry, but Chris Cherry is a professor? Of what, exactly? Electrocyclestatisticalengineering? Ah, um, duh! And the reporter….oh man. Wow.
p gosselin says:
March 14, 2012 at 12:38 pm
“Let me guess – the company won a bunch of environmental awards and lots of pols had their photos taken during plant tours!”
No…actually the company made money selling the scooters to CSUC and stuck the taxpayers of California with the bill. That’s how Green utopias work – you have fun while wasting other people’s money. It works really well until the money runs out…
“What is the battery range of a Volt carrying 5 adults and luggage — in San Francisco?”
Depends on how many of the passengers are pedaling.
kbray in California
If they drove that thing they woud lose all credibility! (although it looks fun)
I have a folding electric bike which I charge up via a small solar panel going into a battery and an invertor. Works well. Much faster than a straightforward bike and helps me get up the steep Devon hills, but I’m not sure speed or hills are an issue on the Chico campus.
tonyb
“Depends on how many of the passengers are pedaling.”
Flintstones?
I suspect that the rest of the story is that someone somewhere had a “great idea” and executed it without asking those who were tasked to implement it. Nobody likes a paradigm shift shoved down their throats from on high.
I agree that cops on stand-up scooters is a silly concept; and the thought of riding a stand-up scooter at 30mph scares me. But some forms of personal electric vehicles can be quite practical aside from any “sustainability” issues. I really enjoy and benefit from the use of my Ridekick power trailer (full disclosure: I work for Ridekick and helped to design it) with a direct operating cost of about 1/4 cent per mile. It (in combination with my bike) is my 3-season commuting machine.
Justa Joe says:
March 14, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Thank (a) god that I am not in ‘Professor’ Chris Cherry’s Civil & Environment Engineering class – 14 ‘ah’s in the first minute of the video you posted. Let’s hope his electric bike initiative actually worked, although the criteria for ‘worked’ may be different if you put touch-feely green ‘environmental’ considerations ahead of practicality and cost-effectiveness.
I wonder how many times they’ve taken these electric scooters out only to have the battery run flat somewhere, subsequently walked back and then taken out the truck to pick the scooters up.
ok, ethanol drive?, biofuel drive and what was the other street sign? these people are nuts.
Better for routine patrols would be the industrial tricycles. Step in (no high bar), sit, and pedal. They don’t need to go fast, and parking, or running after someone, does not require a kickstand.
If they want something electric, try a Segway. All the cool Mall Cops have them.
I alway prefered Fred Flintstones car…
You’re thinking of Best Intentions Road. You know where it leads to.
Nice interview with Prof Cherry’s beard.