Los Angeles ? Let me be the first on my block to squawk about a coming nuisance that will make our weary days more insufferable.

If urban life isn’t struggle enough, just wait.

Background: As a people, we Americans are too fat and sedentary. Maybe you saw the recent report from the scientists at Rand. They found that public health-care costs stemming from obesity surpass the toll taken by cigarettes.

Personally, I no longer avail myself of valet parking at pubs and restaurants, except in emergencies. That way I get regular exercise. Besides, walking in the beach villages of Southern California is one of the distinct pleasures of life here, what with all the starlets in bikinis and the playful kids and the dogs and the surfers and old folks holding hands.

Not for long, though.

Forget walking. We’re now going to Segway. Or at least some people are. And that’s apt to pretty much ruin the idea of city strolling for the rest of us.

You’ve seen this Segway. The motorized, electric, self-balancing “human transporter” that looks like a witch’s broomstick with wheels, or maybe a rolling pogo stick without the bounce. It’s the coming-soon, gotta-have-it marketing nightmare dreamed up, as the inventors say, so we can “move quicker/carry more.” Great.

So beep-beep, on-your-left and get out of my way. Oops, sorry. You hurt badly?

Something else to add to our inventory of cars, trucks, RVs, personal watercraft, snowmobiles, dune buggies, ski boats, Cessnas, lawn tractors and motorcycles. I haven’t seen hype like this since Nike started selling air in its gym shoes.

The Segway is a breakthrough in one crucial regard: It will bring motorized vehicles onto the sidewalks. It’s built to race down the walkways at 12 mph, which is about 12 times as fast as I like to stroll and three times as fast as your most determined power walker.

Our last urban redoubt is about to be invaded by the motorheads. We’ve seen what a half-bright teen-ager can do with a skateboard. Give them six months with the Segway and politicians will be proposing legislation to mandate the wearing of safety helmets for any pedestrian who dares set foot on a sidewalk. Wait till messenger services get hold of these and soup them up. Sidewalk rage.

Segways won’t be offered to the general public for a few months yet, until the marketing department finishes driving consumers into fits of desire. So far, the plan seems to be working just fine. When Amazon auctioned off the first three of these machines in March, someone in Texas paid $160,100 for Segway HT No. 1 about 50 times the anticipated retail cost.

Segway Chief Executive Dean Kamen could barely contain himself at the sight of the “frenzy,” as he called it.

There’s no doubt that the Segway folks are a clever bunch. Nevermind that the U.S. Postal Service is awash in bottomless debt, it still bit on the hype and managed to come up with cash to test out a fleet of Segways.

Bang, crunch. Oops. Too bad about that coffee all over your dress.

We’ll be teaching our kids that it’s no longer safe to get to the crosswalk.

The Segway weighs 70 pounds and carries riders up to 250 pounds. I did some computations. A direct hit will flatten you as sure as a fridge dropped out of a second-floor apartment. And that’s just for starters. We know where the trend will take us next. People will need to upgrade to SUV-sized Segways. For safety’s sake.

So why allow them? Did I mention these Segway folks are clever? Before Segways are released to us, the flabby masses, the company is going state by state to secure new laws to permit Segways on sidewalks. So far, according to published reports, they have been successful in 23 states. The California Legislature has such a bill under consideration, as does Congress.

Segway riders will have “rights” before they have Segways.

PR propaganda put out by inventors say the name Segway was chosen because it sounds like the word “segue,” which means transition. From a society that doesn’t walk enough to one that doesn’t walk at all, I guess.

These Barnum & Bailey promoters would have us believe the Segway “transforms a person into an empowered pedestrian.”

For those us of left unpowered, I suppose it’s going to be a carton of Pall Malls and tubs of buttered popcorn on the sofa. At least it will be safer than the sidewalks.