It may have been but a matter a time. A February 18 statement by the Consumer Product Safety Commission asserts that tweens' favorite mode of transportation, the hoverboard, poses a fire hazard and is in fact unsafe at any speed. And it's not just the cheap knock-offs drawing government ire: It's all of them.
The self-balancing scooters colloquially known as 'hoverboards" have been in the news following a series of fires resulting from overcharged lithium ion batteries and substandard parts. Indeed, the mobility devices have been blamed for at least two fires in the Bay Area, and were banned from the campus of SF State earlier this month as a precautionary measure. The CPSC statement asserts that reports of 52 scooter fires over the course of two and a half months drove it to ban the dangerous transportation device.
The statement from the government agency is addressed to "manufacturers, importers, and retailers of self-balancing scooters," and claims all hoverboards currently being manufactured fail its basic safety tests. Should the agency "encounter such products at import, [it] may seek detention and/or seizure" and continues that if the agency "[encounters] such products domestically, [it] may seek a recall of these products."
But don't expect hoverboard manufactures like Swagway to take this lying down. Although no current scooter meets the basic safety requirements, that doesn't mean that a brand won't quickly design one that does. And can today's youth really be kept from their hovertoys forever? Nah.
I stand for our generation and our generation is gonna be riding hover boards so if you don't like it eat a dick!
— KOE (@wizkhalifa) August 23, 2015
Related: Hoverboards Set To Get Even Dorkier With Mandatory Helmet Law, Other Regulations Taking Effect