Kent Gearry is on a mission. Spotting the glint of broken glass, he angles his scooter up on to the footpath, the vacuum cleaner roars into life, and, as the shards of beer bottle thump-and-clatter into the aluminium drawer behind him, Gearry pushes the button on the GPS. The glass is gone; the site is logged. He takes a particular satisfaction in this. Gearry, having helped design and build the mark II ‘scooter vac', is now its pilot - and so far the experience has been going well. The vacuum cleaner is more than up to the task, and the scooter - generously supplied by Palmerston North's Honda City - gets by on $5 of petrol every two days and does everything asked of it. Broken glass is a bane of city life. In Palmerston North alone, broken glass is estimated to cost motorists $350,000 in puncture repairs, while nationwide it results in $3 million worth of claims to ACC annually. Motorists, the drivers of mobility scooters, children in bare feet, pets: where there is broken glass, everyone suffers.