Pushkin

One Sunday morning in September, Sean Christie was walking his dog along a footpath by the side of the river Wawff in Yorkshire, England.

The path wound upwards as the bank rose sharply away from the river. Looking up, Mr Christie saw another man on the path at the top of the hill, about to come down.

The path wasn't really wide enough for both of them. This happens all the time on walks in the English countryside. One walker finds a place to move aside to let the other pass.

There'd be a smile and a greeting, maybe a word about the weather. But the man at the top of the hill wasn't walking.

He was on a Segway, you know, at two-wheeled, chunky electric scooter-type device that you'd sometimes see being ridden by sightseeing tourists and cities, or security guards in shopping malls.

Not so often on country walks.

Mr Christie later described seeing the figure on the Segway back up slightly off the path, inviting the dog walker to continue up past him.

The man wobbled, then disappeared from view. Mr Christie went to look over the edge, down the steep drop.

At the bottom, 40 feet below was a Segway, and the man, not moving, faced down in the river.

Mr Christie called the emergency services, but there was nothing they could do.

The man had died, the post-mortem found, of multiple blunt force injuries to the chest and spine.

The body of the Segway owner was identified. It turned out he didn't just own a Segway. He owned Segway, the company.

The story made headlines, and you could almost hear the guilty chuckles being suppressed in newsrooms around the world.

Owner of Segway dies on Segway. Segway maker is killed on one. Segway boss dies riding one off cliff.

You can't openly poke fun at the accidental death of a 62-year-old man, while being courteous to a dog walker.

Still, Segways were kind of a joke. President George W. Bush famously tumbled off one at Kenny Bunkport.

Their dorky, uncool image had recently been reinforced by the comedy movie Paul Blart, Mall Cop, in which Kevin James plays an out-of-shape Segway riding security guard with delusions of grandeur.

That the boss of Segway had ridden a Segway off a cliff was the kind of news story that made you suppress a guilty chuckle.

But that wasn't the real story here. It wasn't the real story at all.

I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales.

This is a cautionary tale of two inventions. One was simple and boring. We'll hear about that later.

...