Bedford Driving Lessons

Electric-powered Segways were banned from Britain’s footpaths today in a court case that gave new impetus to campaigners who want to see the self-balancing 12.5mph two-wheelers allowed on the country’s roads. A district judge fined 51-year-old Phillip Coates £75 with £265 costs for riding on pavements in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, but said his verdict pointed to eventual road use. After evidence including a successful ride by Coates’s 86-year-old mother, the judge, Michael Rosenberg, said: “I am inexorably driven to the conclusion that the Segway is a motor vehicle.” This automatically bans the Segway from pavements but opens the door to a challenge – given mechanical improvements – to the current position that they fail legal requirements for “a motor vehicle for use on the highway”. Coates, who was reported by a civilian police worker, has yet to decide whether to appeal, but sympathisers are certain to encourage further moves in what they see as a test case. They include the former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik, who said at an earlier hearing that the 1835 Highways Act was outdated and unable to cope with the 10-year-old invention. Rosenberg told Barnsley magistrates court that contemplating the issue since an initial hearing last summer had been “far from easy to determine”. He acknowledged fears among other road users, which were exacerbated in September when the Segway company’s owner, Jimi Heselden, died after losing control of his machine. Rosenberg said: “The crux of the matter is for me to interpret whether or not the Segway is a mechanically-propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on a road.’ More