08-12-2015 15:00

Hoverboards are tipped to be one of the most popular Christmas gifts, but fire officers have issued warnings about the dangers of hoverboards, advising people not to buy them as Christmas presents. They say they could overheat, explode or catch fire.

Three house fires in London were caused by hoverboards in just 10 days in October.

In the last two months, trading standards have examined 17,000 hoverboards at ports of entry across the UK, and of those, 15,000 were assessed as unsafe. Eighty-eight per cent of all those checked were faulty. They included safety issues with the plugs, cabling, chargers, batteries and the cut-off switch within the board.

They are the gadgets gliding to the top of the Christmas wish list but safety officers are encouraging people to heed the warnings about their possible dangers.

Difficult words: hover (to move in the air – the hoverboards are not real hoverboards because they have wheels), tip (to say that something is going to be successful), faulty (not working correctly). cut-off switch (a kill switch; a mechanism with shuts something down in an emergency), gadget (a cool new product), glide (to move).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com