Thousands of unsafe ‘hoverboards’ detained over past seven weeks

© Khunaspix Dreamstime.

In the UK, the faintly ridiculous sight of grown men and women trying to navigate our cracked and broken pavements on a contraption that looks rather like someone’s superglued a pair of roller-skates together has become all too familiar – and it’s not as if our growing problem with obesity needs any further obstacles; what was so wrong with the being-able-to-walk invention that evolution came up with? Anyway, predictions that hoverboards would become 2015’s Christmas gift craze appear to have been peppered somewhat by the revelation that 15,000 (representing a massive 88% of those imported) have been seized by trading standards officers at ports of entry because of safety concerns, including issues with “plug, cabling, charger, battery or cut-off switch”.