As per a report from the Associated Press, some 20 American institutions have now banned these motorized scooters altogether. “It’s clear that these things are potentially dangerous,” Len Dolan, managing director of fire safety at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, told the AP. “These things are just catching fire without warning, and we don’t want that in any of our dorms,” he continued.
Although some colleges have only banned the boards from dorms, others have prohibited them across campus, and it seems that more schools may soon follow suit. From Louisiana to Ohio to our nation’s capital, students are being told to leave their boards at home. And outside of colleges, hoverboards are outlawed on the streets of New York and come with considerable regulations in California.
While this may seem like something of an overreaction, it’s worth noting that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is currently investigating some 28 fires across 19 states, all of which have been linked to hoverboards.
Still, students are none too pleased about the new rules. “Honestly I was really disappointed,” Bryce Colegrove, a sophomore at Shawnee State University in Ohio, which recently banned hoverboards, told the AP. “I don’t think it’s right to ban them. I mean, it’s a college campus; it’s not a high school.”
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