Hoverboard safety issues prompt changes

First things first: Hoverboards don't actually hover. They are two-wheeled, battery-powered, skateboard-like scooters that can reach speeds of up to 13 miles per hour.

That makes the machines both cool and dangerous — so dangerous, in fact, that they may soon become the fad that nearly was, rather than the next big thing.

Hoverboards quickly became commonplace on college campuses last fall, and a new alliance of Chinese manufacturers and sellers of the devices estimates that $4.6 billion worth of them were exported in 2015.

"It's the coolest, most useless device," said Mike Boyles, 22, a Marquette University student who owns three hoverboards. "Yes, they're sort of stupid, but in a way they made walking cool again."

They also made it risky.

Since December, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has received reports of more than 60 hoverboards exploding, smoking or bursting into flames, a result of their being powered by faulty lithium-ion batteries.

Commission spokesman Scott Wolfson estimates that hundreds of people, including celebrities like Mike Tyson, have been sent to the hospital with hoverboard-related injuries. Injury reports range from small bumps and bruises to serious fractures and head trauma.

"It's an issue of both fires and falls," Wolfson said.

The commission had been logging the numbers and types of injuries for a time, but the number grew so large that it stopped keeping track.

"Hospitals were saying as many as 12 people were injured over a 24-hour period," Wolfson said. "There have been potentially hundreds of hospital visits across the country, and our data collection just couldn't keep up."

Prices have declined

The boards first hit the market in early 2015 and were expensive at first, costing well over $1,000 in some cases, but those models were followed by more competitively priced versions. Companies like Swagway, now one of the country's top-selling brands, began selling hoverboards, virtually identical to the expensive ones, for around $300. The lower price made the boards popular among price-conscious college students.

Most boards now are priced online at $150 to $1,500 — the pricier ones, like the $1,300 iO Hawk, tend to weigh less (18 pounds) and carry more weight (up to 300 pounds).

Three or four members of Marquette University's men's basketball team joined the craze; none has been injured, a team spokesman said. And Marquette, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Area Technical College and the Milwaukee School of Engineering have had no reported incidents of hoverboard fires or injuries.

Still, as reports of injury-causing falls and fires mounted elsewhere, the devices have raised safety concerns among university administrations. More than a half-dozen colleges in Wisconsin, including UWM and Marquette, have fully or partially banned them.

In January, Marquette banned hoverboard use in its residence halls, academic buildings and university-owned apartments.

"Student safety is a top priority at Marquette," university spokesman Chris Jenkins said in an email. "The rising popularity of hoverboards — along with some of the safety concerns regarding their use — has prompted many colleges across the country to consider more comprehensive policies."

Although the boards are "banned," Jenkins said students would not be cited if spotted using them in a university-owned building.

"They would likely be asked to stop using the hoverboard. If they had to be asked multiple times, it could potentially go through the university's conduct system," he said.

Jenkins added that the university plans to implement additional regulations this summer, preventing not just the use but also the storage of hoverboards in its dorms and apartment buildings.

While not outright banning hoverboards on its campus, UWM plans to enforce the same rules it has in place for skateboards and Segways — which are electric-powered scooters, like hoverboards, but which have handlebars. Unless a student is using a hoverboard "recklessly" at UWM, he or she will be allowed to use it for transportation.

A spokesperson for MSOE said that hoverboards were not widely used on the campus, adding that the college had a more difficult time regulating its unicycle riders than skateboard or hoverboard users.

Safety concerns arise

After reports of hoverboard injuries and explosions began circulating in December, the Consumer Product Safety Commission began investigating, and regulators also announced that Underwriters Laboratories, which certifies products as safe for consumer use, would develop a set of safety requirements for hoverboards.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com Inc. began offering full refunds to those who had purchased hoverboards on the site. In a statement Jan. 20, commission chairman Elliot Kaye praised the decision and encouraged other retailers to do the same.

Several companies, including Swagway, had been advertising that their boards were UL-certified. While components inside the hoverboards had been approved, the hoverboards themselves were not.

"At this time, the presence of a UL mark on hoverboards or their packaging should not be an indication to consumers of the product's safety," Kaye said in a statement. "In fact, any such mark is at best misleading and may even be a sign of a counterfeit product."

After a month of testing, the safety commission released a letter Feb. 20 addressed to hoverboard manufacturers, importers and retailers, saying no hoverboards were safe to use.

"Should the staff encounter such products at import, we may seek detention and/or seizure. In addition, if we do encounter such products domestically, we may seek a recall of these products," Robert Howell of the Consumer Product Safety Commission wrote.

Amazon then pulled all hoverboards from its site, and Target, Wal-Mart and Toys 'R' Us followed suit and stopped selling hoverboards in their stores. The boards can still be found online on eBay.

Chinese manufacturers responded to the backlash by forming the Hoverboard Industry Alliance in January. Composed of more than 100 hoverboard makers and sellers, the group intends to work with the safety commission and other organizations to set safety standards for hoverboards. The alliance had its second meeting last week.

So with safety issues seemingly putting the brakes on the hoverboard craze, what are early adopters like Marquette's Boyles planning to do with their boards now?

"I'm not really sure what I'll do with it," Boyles said. "They aren't nearly as popular as they used to be, but I still think they're cool. Maybe my roommates and I can use it to take out the trash or something."