Looking at the photos and trying to understand how a person would comfortably drive it, I figured I must be missing something.

So I looked up photos with a person inside and no, it really is that bad [0]. Pure form over function.

Uncomfortable, yes. That's bad enough. But you hands are far back under your center of gravity. Any crash over a few km/hr is going to result in a faceplant because there's no way you'll bring your hands forward fast enough. Top speed of 24km/hr is enough to cause serious... death by head trauma.

[0] https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...