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:
In similar vein here in Castlemaine, Australia we have a local council who’s worship of Gaia transcends all else, including it’s core municipal responsibilities. A few years back the Mount Alexander Shire Council purchased a Blade electric car (the electric lemon) so that the Mayor could show the Green flag around the district. They presumably didn’t realise that, even when new, the Blade barely had adequate range to complete the round trip to the nearest substantial city Bendigo, about 25 miles away.
The Council also purchased four push bikes for Green transport between the Town Hall, and the Council offices about one mile away.
These Green embarrassments now sit forlornly discarded away from public gaze, as yet another example the Council’s waste of ratepayers funds.
CW – code monkey with a wrench says:
March 14, 2012 at 3:50 pm
FYI for CW:
The guy making those is Matt Shumaker in Illinois.
That one is a custom 20,000 watts.
His email is shumaker(at)owc(dot)net
Double click on the video title for more discussion.
Other models or conversions are on the market.
Try: http://www.FFRtrikes.com/
or http://www.ecospeed.com/index.html
I am not connected to any of them, but I find them interesting…
Happy Hunting. Search “tadpole electric”.
Laughter is the best medicine.
At least on a bike you consume calories. Leaves more space for donuts! Sorry for the stereotype but too good an opportunity to miss. 😉
DaveF says:
March 14, 2012 at 2:09 pm
This is the first I’ve heard of Diggler scooters. Not a company set up by one Dirk Diggler by any chance?
——————
So Dave, what have you heard about Dirk?
Don says:
March 14, 2012 at 4:50 pm
On the other end of the spectrum…
————————————
Is there some police force trying to equip there force with 72′ Buick deuce & a quarters? I don’t remember that even in 72′. Although they would be more serviceable than those scooters.
Can I make up a new word?
“Eco-masturbation” Or has it already been done?
Chuck Nolan 6:54pm:
Hallo Chuck – I remember a (UK) Channel 4 documentary about American pornographic films (naturally I didn’t know what ‘pornographic’ meant until then) which dwelt on the rather well-endowed Dirk. Made me feel quite inadequate. I wondered if he retired and went into inventing things, like these scooters, that also made their riders look, er, inadequate. Best wishes, Dave.
This folly has reminded me of a wonderful example of sustainability I saw outside my house late last year, close to the end of the school year. Unfortunately, the camera battery was flat, so I couldn’t capture it visually.
In Tasmania we have replaced school zone signs with solar powered LED illuminated signs that light up when needed to post the temporary (40kph) speed zone before and after school. I must admit that I like them, and have reason to do so: my only traffic ticket in 25 years was for doing 55kph in what I though was a 60kph zone. I failed to notice the School Zone sign, located outside line of sight (I discovered later) which stated the lower limit that applied ‘on school days’ and until 9.30am (30mins after schools start – presumably because they operated on the precautionary principle!). I didn’t have a school age child, so I had no idea when the school term finished. (As it happens, private schools have different holidays to state schools). Had I noticed the sign, I would have to have checked the time to see whether it applied (the speed camera told me it was 9.26), worked out whether school was in, and then checked the speedometer to find I was not 5kph under the limit, but 15 kph over.
So let me state up front, I think the new signs are a good idea. They are visible when they apply.
I cam home late last year as the local school was a week off breaking up for the summer holidays, and there was a portable petrol generator running at the base of the sign, with a cable running up to the solar unit and battery. On the post was a printed sign explaining that the sun had not delivered sufficient energy to charge the battery! Admittedly, it’s a leafy street and we are in La Nina, so it’s been cloudy – but I thought it was a wonderful photo opportunity missed. Perhaps I need a solar powered camera.
This news item seems relevant:
Exodus: California Tax Revenue Plunges by 22%
“Derisively referred to as Taxifornia by the independent Pacific Research Institute, California wins the booby prize for the highest personal income taxes in the nation and higher sales tax rates than all but four other states. Though Californians benefit from Proposition 13 restrictions on how much their property tax can increase in one year, the state still has the worst state tax burden in the U.S.”
Meanwhile, Chico State wastes taxpayer money on scooters…
This may not have been an appropriate application for the vehicles – although I think the ‘image problem’ says more about the problems with the attitude to police in the US than anything else – why shouldn’t (campus!) cops look helpful and approachable? – but I’m a big fan of this kind of transportation device. I’d like to live in a city in which this kind of lightweight personal transportation – microcars like the Peel P50, small mopeds/scooters and so-on – had dedicated, physically separated lanes and so was safe to use.
A large proportion of the energy we use for personal road transport is used to haul around big metal cages to keep us safe if we crash – but in urban environments, they’re complete overkill as protection if you crash into a stationary object at 15-20MPH, and the only purpose is to protect you from the big heavy traffic with which you may be sharing the road. Get rid of the risk from heavy vehicles and have a purely urban, ultra-lightweight ‘car’ with a top speed of 20-30MPH and you can also do away with the vast majority of the crash protection structures, vastly simplify suspension, and then the car’s so light that you can use a tiny 100cc engine or some such.
In an environment where the largest thing I’m competing for road-space with is a microcar as described, then I’d happily ride a powered scooter for commuting and so-on. Extend the Boris Bikes network out to the suburbs and replace them with these scooters – which will sit charging at their docks most of the time in any case – and you’d have an entirely new, low-investment, high-throughput public transport system for London.
Quoted by Frank K. on March 15, 2012 at 5:25 am:
“Derisively referred to as Taxifornia by the independent Pacific Research Institute, California wins the booby prize for the highest personal income taxes in the nation and higher sales tax rates than all but four other states.”
To note it, this is not Peter Gleick’s Pacific Institute, which evidently is neither great at doing research nor is it all that independent. From their home page, the “About Us” block:
Social equity? Homes have equity, but societies?
By a serendipitous accident, as Google has decided I like Instant Results despite the dial-up connection, “social equi” found as the first result ‘How to use social media to make money; building social equity’. Indeed, as demonstrated, ‘advancing social equity’ while controlling social media with lots of PR campaigning has been shown to make lots of money for those doing so.
Gleick and Taxifornia, truly they deserve each other.
One thing I like about Texas. Our downtown cops use horses, and have much more intimidating hats.
Diggler? as in Dirk Diggler? Too darn funny!
I think they misspelled “risible”.
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.
@Curiousgeorge: at 1:49 pm
You think emblazing the scooters with the two words “Harley Davidson” will help?
Come to think of it, troublemakers will be ROTFL so the cops can do without tazers.
Does Chico (and the Man) State have an engineering department? If so, why not have the students design and build some electric rigs for use on campus?
It’s the design AND the concept. A bike and his rider are tied together. Run into a curb and you are still in some control, and you don’t necessarily leave the bike. Standing on a scooter has no stick-with-it-ness. You have huge, sudden flexibility and agility with a bike, leaning over, jumping a curb etc. None with the electric.
Hybrid electric bikes would be too heavy.
It’s not the electric-is-stupid. It is just an application that isn’t appropriate.
That is the Green problem: theory reigns, not facts.
johnnyrvf says:
March 14, 2012 at 3:21 pm
@ur momisugly Curiousgeorge
Two more words.
Honda Fireblade.
Both of you guys are totally wrong. These guys are campus cops, not Main Street cops. In DC they have motorcycle patrols on 400cc Honda Rebels. They put gadawful loud pipes on them so they sound like real motor bikes. But they have the strengths of their design. A strong (for its size), durable, efficient engine. Low maintenance. Nimble and easy to master. For a campus, I’d think a good thumper enduro would be a better choice. Perhaps a BMW Funduro. Or, might I suggest the KTM Duke? Now THAT has “presence”!
That Trek police bicycle someone pointed to doesn’t look like much special.
It’s rear carrier is small and flimsy, and its kickstand is poorly designed in its attachment to the frame (I have one, unfortunately).
Appears to have front shocks, which is good, but both poor type of handlebars (need erect to observe more) and poor seat configuration for their riding.
Police would have to add much to the bicycle.
Hopefully its frame and basic mechanisms are solid and properly matched, to justify the price. (For example, a Montague folding bicycle that supposedly was used by military paratroopers does not have correct matching of derailleur and sprockets, so shifting is not consistent. You don’t need the chain coming off when you are chasing bad people or rushing in or out of enemy territory.)
Now that I’ve read more, I see they already had bicycles. Sounds like a Keystone Kampus management wise, the police were OK. The glorifed skateboard scooters look like a tech gimmick in search of a problem.
Some commenters herein apparently need a self-powered conveyance. The only police who might need such would be those patrolling a very large campus – we are by definition talking of able-bodied persons, who have to be able to wrestle a suspect to the ground, not medically challenged individuals.
Spring is struggling to emerge on the wet coast, so soon I’ll see more police on bicycles in my neighbourhood near water and walkways. (IIRC they are used in some downtown areas, though in Victoria BC I’d anticipate foot patrol is more practical due alleys and modest size of area. Hmm, don’t history books show police doing foot patrols? Slow but they see and hear more, including by chatting with store people about what they’ve seen. Do I correctly recall that Vancouver BC police went back to foot patrols in some areas such as business districts of Commercial Drive?)
i picked up a used diggler for about 35 bucks. you can pick them up from ski resorts after the end of the summer season.
they rent them out for downhill runs. they are incredibly stable and nimble, much easier on a downhill then a bike, and pretty quick.
as far as build, they are full 4130, have a skid plate that eats rocks and are almost indestructible.
i know mammoth has them, and here in colorado, several ski resorts have them.
of course, they aren’t electric.
campus cops worrying about looking tough? like anybody had respect for a campus cop to begin with.
they have benefits. unlike a bike, you don’t have to straddle it, so if you are chasing someone, you can practically run right off the platform. you don’t have to worry about someone stealing the seat while you are fueling up on coffee and donuts, and you don’t have to worry about doing an endo when you are popping a curb trying to impress the chicks.
which reminds me, schwinn used to make a bmx tire called the dirt diggler.