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:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Our community college bought their security police a fleet of Segways. They were too embarrassed to use them and so they left them in a shed to rot.
http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/mountain/sport/police/police/#
$1400 and you get your man-hood back.
One of the more difficult aspects in training law enforcement officers is teaching them to control volatile or potentially volatile situations by projecting a commanding psychological presence. Officers who acquire this ability can often diffuse confrontational incidents without resorting to physical or violent interventions. Rolling up to a potential dustup, which on a college campus will often involve individuals in varying states of intoxication, on one of these toys which has doofus written all over it, would seem likely to make controlling the scene by nonviolent methods extremely problematic. Watching just a few episodes of “Cops” will demonstrate that there has been a dramatic and general decline in the social restraints against offering violent resistance to law enforcement even among people who would not normally be considered part of the criminal class. In the present environment the police need to preserve every advantage they have. Making them look like something out of a “Monty Python” sketch would seem to be the the exact opposite of helpful.
It was either the Atlanta or Orland airport some years ago where I first saw cops (or maybe airport security) on Segways. They looked reasonable professional, efficient and effective, at least, in an indoor environment. Those scooters look childish. I suppose Chico couldn’t afford Segways.
Yeah Right.
My brother-in-law lost a leg thanks to a gas powered moped being hit by a car and my husband gave up using a bike after he was left for dead after being hit by a car.
NO THANKS! doesn’t come close.
A thought ~ Perhaps this is another method for the Malthusians to cull the human herd.
I think The Heavy, Oat-fed, Replaceable, Street Engine . . . AKA HORSE, is a more sustainable, Ecologically Friendly, Community Enriching alternative that adds Biodiversity to the Farm-Animal Free oppression of the Campus Gulag . . .
There, did I use enough PC buzzwords?
Oh wait, they’re animals – we must not exploit them – we must simply leave them be until they die.
Two words: Harley Davidson.
Dave Wendt says:
March 14, 2012 at 1:31 pm
“Watching just a few episodes of “Cops” will demonstrate that there has been a dramatic and general decline in the social restraints against offering violent resistance to law enforcement even among people who would not normally be considered part of the criminal class.”
The predictable outcome of “Brutalizing” every application of ‘physical persuasion’ even when warranted, as a response to the vastly fewer instances where it was unwarranted.
CalState Chico needs a new name.
I suggest CSU Groucho, Harpo, Zeppo or Gummo.
The concept of “energy density” is difficult for some to grasp.
Andrew Parker says:
March 14, 2012 at 12:43 pm
What is the battery range of a Volt carrying 5 adults and luggage — in San Francisco?
The IC motor would probably kick in on most long upgrades and on downgrades the added weight would probably enhance the regenerative braking gains, so the battery range would likely be quite variable. Overall mileage would almost certainly be less, but the same would be true no matter what type of powerplant was being utilized. It would take a very finely designed experimental methodology to determine the actual c/b ratio for various powerplant choices.
Poor police officers, caught in the middle of the CAGW religious farce.
It could only look worse if they were wearing propeller beanies.
What is this world coming to….
…when even the cops opt out of the Darwin lottery
I’m reminded of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_911!
I can totally picture Lt. Jim Dangle riding one of these. In his shortpants.
This is the first I’ve heard of Diggler scooters. Not a company set up by one Dirk Diggler by any chance?
Send these bikes to Afghanistan immediately, and make the troops use them. By showing a low carbon footprint lifestyle to the Taliban, we can turn them into tree-hugging pacifists.
p gosselin says: March 14, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Let me give Pierre’s great website a plug with this gem:-
http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/13/spiegel-lets-the-genie-out-writes-on-germanys-church-of-environmentalism-and-its-absurdities/
Der Spiegel is of course a lefty / greenie publication like the Grauniad (but more honest, I think).
When they start publishing criticisms of the enviro-mentalists it is a bit like the Catholic Herald slagging off the Pope!
Totalitarianism. Anyone who thinks the ad is funny is an idiot.
Oh wait, you didn’t perhaps think that they were… joking, were you? Ha ha! Now THAT’S funny!
No wonder there haven’t been any good California highway police chases on the news lately.
I see some mention of fuel costs from 1/4 of a cent to 1 cent a mile, but I suspect it does not include the cost of replacing the batteries when they wear out. I know few people who have invested in electrically powered transport apparatuses, and in all the cases i know have had to purchase replacement batteries a cost which not only makes the supposed save on fuel disappear into thin air, but assuming that the new set of batteries have a lifetime similar to the the one just discarded, the final transport cost is usually closer to 50 c/mile, which again equates to paying something like 12 to 15 $ for a gallon of gasoline, if the the family car is used in stead.
Good point, Bjorn. Notice I said “direct operating cost”. Battery and vehicle amortization costs should be factored into any cost/benefit evaluation of an EV. Some cheap units do not have adequate battery management systems and thus overdrain or overcharge the batteries resulting in costly premature failure. But consider that electric golf carts and mobility scooters have been in service for decades, so a reasonable cost/benefit scenario must be achievable if care is exercised in design.
Someone mentioned energy density. No disputing that fossil fuels (and nukes) rule that category!
Anthony, you have well and truly made your point about the sheer fatuity, silliness and illogicality of out-of-control greenmentalists by publishing this article.
If this cautionary tale from your local college campus was a film script it would have been rejected for being unbelievable!
Enviros are rarely economists. And for the most part are clueless inter-meddlers.
unicycles would be even more green than those two wheeled monstrosities with an oily chain you call bicycles.
No cup holder and nowhere within arms’ reach to store the donuts. What were the administrators thinking?
@ur momisugly Curiousgeorge
Two more words.
Honda Fireblade.