Amazon has announced it will stop selling hoverboards, which were one of the hottest gifts this holiday season. The online retail giant will stop stocking all brands of hover boards, including the leading producer Swagway, in the midst of safety concerns about the levitating scooters catching fire in several cases during the past year.
The United States' Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is investigating about a dozen cases of fire linked to hoverboards in 2015, due to the use of low-quality lithium ion-batteries. There have also been many cases of crashes involving the boards.
People who received hoverboards as Christmas gifts are discovering that maneuvering on them is more difficult than it may seem. To add insult to injury, friends and relatives are also uploading videos of the wipeouts on social networks and video sharing sites, according to Today.
Several airlines also do not allow passengers to bring the boards as carry-on luggage, in order to prevent possible fires. They include American Airlines, United, and Delta Airlines, according to I4U News.
Overstock.com has also pulled all hoverboard items from its website. An investigation is pending.
Owners of the levitating boards can take a key step to help prevent the items catching fire. Cheap batteries can be replaced with higher quality units, in order to help reduce the chance of the power source catching fire.
The CPSC has also issued some helpful safety tips for new owners of hoverboards. They include always wearing a helmet and pads when riding a board, not charging the units overnight due to the lithium-ion batteries, and reporting any incidents involving falls or fires to safeproducts.gov.
Here is a recap of airline bans of hoverboards: