Unlike lucky Carrie Melago at the Daily News, we did not have the opportunity to test-drive the P.U.M.A.—a new battery-powered prototype from Segway and GM—but this HD video is the next best thing. Watch in wonder as the bespectacled white guy cruises through Brooklyn Heights at top speeds of 35 m.p.h., then, through the magic of Hollywood, winds up by the Flatiron building with a gal pal! Too bad there's no footage of his death-defying P.U.M.A. ride over the Manhattan Bridge.
As for Melago, she just rode shotgun on a little test run over by the High Line, and reports that "the ride was cramped—there was virtually no legroom, which is saying a lot because I'm only 5 feet tall. It was much smoother than taking my husband's Honda Accord up the West Side Highway and, with a maximum speed of 35 mph, probably faster." Guess she should have married a real man with a P.U.M.A.! Unfortunately, at this time the P.U.M.A. is neither for sale nor legal for use on city streets, to say nothing of the West Side Highway.
And while Segway officials assure Crunch Gear that P.U.M.A. "will have beefed up suspension to handle rough terrain like NYC’s pothole riddled streets," the Post's doubting Thomas Topousis is skeptical P.U.M.A. will ever legally prowl the streets of New York: "In a city that can barely keep its streets functioning, and where lawmakers are tied in knots over funding mass transit, the chances of creating an entirely new system of lanes and dedicated parking is hard to imagine."
