A Bumpy Ride for Segway CEO

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If 300 road fatalities don’t stop car purchases, what’s one accidental Segway death?

As the fatal accident involving Segway’s CEO proves, there are untimely deaths – and very untimely deaths.

Water-cooler buzz – it’s what every brand wants. It’s what PR flacks are hired to create. Everyone wants a strategy to get people talking about their product.


Here’s a plan that is certain to bring results: have the president of your company die while using your product. This past September, 62-year-old James Heseldon, a British entrepreneur who had purchased Segway Inc. in 2009, was found dead in the English countryside. His body was at the bottom of a 30-metre drop, his Segway nearby. That got people talking, all right. To read the news reports it was as if he was found alongside the murder weapon. Who tied him up and forced him to ride that contraption? Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the Segway?


If there’s no such thing as bad publicity, the Segway people should be thrilled. And if buzz means sales, prepare to see those two-wheeled vehicles everywhere. But it seems unlikely. In terms of brand disasters, this one is almost in a category by itself. Toyota has had its troubles, but at least the CEO never vaulted off a cliff while frantically pumping his brakes.


Product malfunctions are always magnified when the boss is directly involved. It can be just as bad when the “product” is behavioural. Back in 1984, 52-year-old Jim Fixx died of a massive heart attack. Since Fixx was the man behind the 1977 book, The Complete Book of Running – which was credited with starting the jogging craze – the circumstances of his demise literally stopped people in their tracks. Unlike the Segway boss, though, Fixx wasn’t actually selling the offending items (in this case, overpriced running shoes and sweat pants with funky stripes down the side). News stories also tended to point out Fixx had been a long-time two-pack-a-day smoker whose own father had died of a heart attack at the age of 43. Nonetheless, couch potatoes had been handed a foolproof response to all the jogging evangelists in the world: “Remember Jim Fixx. And pass the Doritos.” 


The death of Dr. Robert Atkins in 2003 may have had nothing to do with his hugely successful Atkins Diet. But news of his heart trouble and weight fluctuations couldn’t have helped either. At any rate, the company declared bankruptcy in 2005. Pasta makers rejoiced. 


The Segway has always been a problematic product anyway. Massively overhyped before its 2001 unveiling, the personal transporter has since struggled to find its niche alongside the bicycle, scooter and golf cart. As a means of transport, it never caught on; too fast for sidewalks and too slow for roads. Vancouver police use Segways on some patrols, but they also ride horses – another form of transport with a record of user fatalities. Risk is part of their job. 


With usage largely confined to cops, letter carriers, warehouses and tourist rentals, can the Segway bounce back? Surviving a PR disaster of this magnitude usually depends on the location of the wound. Does the incident strike at the heart of the product’s viability? The new and admittedly unfair association between Segway use and untimely death on mountain trails may impact sales of pack animals; burros will probably gain market share next year. Postal workers servicing hilly ’hoods in North and West Vancouver may now be, shall we say, less inclined to use the device. 


But given the specialized nature of Segway use, the recent flood of negative news coverage should not prove fatal – with apologies to the late Mr. Heseldon. The poor guy just wanted to promote green transportation. And after all, approximately 300 B.C. road fatalities each year haven’t stopped people from buying cars. If the next victim turns out to be a guy named Hyundai, we’ll see what happens.