Colleges banned them from their campuses, airlines banned them from their planes, your mom banned them from her dang house—along with Ryan, who’s still as no-good as ever—and now, Amazon has banned them from its store. Mashable reported Wednesday that “all hoverboards, regardless of brand, [have been] scrubbed from the site.”
The move comes just days after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission released a notice that deemed every single self-balancing, fire-staring, insurance nightmare currently on the market unsafe.
In it, they wrote:
From December 1, 2015, through February 17, 2016, CPSC received reports, from consumers in 24 states, of 52 self-balancing scooter fires resulting in over $2 million in property damage, including the destruction of two homes and an automobile. We believe that many of the reported incidents, and the related unreasonable risk of injuries and deaths associated with fires in these products, would be prevented if all such products were manufactured in compliance with the referenced voluntary safety standards.
Unless manufacturers improve their designs to comply with the UL standard, hoverboards as we know them may not be available for much longer.
Looks like the original Segway’s moment is finally here.
Contact the author at bobby@jezebel.com.