Onewheel: Snowboard Shop halts sales after four deaths in US

UK store The Snowboard Shop has pulled Onewheel electric skateboards from sale with immediate effect following a recall in the US.

US watchdog the Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled all 300,000 of the devices that have been sold, after four people died while riding them.

It said Onewheels posed a crash hazard that could result in serious injury or death.

The Snowboard Shop told the BBC it would contact its UK customers.

It said people who had purchased Onewheels would be notified while it looked into the issue, and it had approached the manufacturer for clarification.

It has chosen to keep the products on its website in order to provide a link to the product recall notice, but there is no “buy” button. Would-be customers can instead only “enquire” about them, and it is responding to enquiries with information about the recall.

The BBC has approached Future Motion, which makes the electric skateboards, to ask if the recall covers customers who bought theirs through UK resellers.

Other distributors of Onewheel electric skateboards in the UK have also been approached for comment.

Last year, the CPSC urged people to stop using Onewheels. At the time, Future Motion objected and said they were safe “when operated following basic safe riding principles common to any board sport”.

It said there was “no reason” for people to stop using their devices.

Now, according to a legal document filed by Future Motion in September, the firm is facing 31 lawsuits from people in the US who “allege that they fell because the Onewheel stopped or shut off unexpectedly”.

It said in the filings that no case relating to the electric skateboards had ever been tested in court.

The recall involves all models of Onewheel electric skateboards, which includes the original Onewheel, as well as the Onewheel+, Onewheel+ XR, Onewheel Pint, Onewheel Pint X and Onewheel GT models.

The CPSC said Future Motion received “dozens of reports” involving the devices, which included four deaths between 2019 and 2021.

It was also told about injuries including “traumatic brain injury, concussion, paralysis, upper-body fractures, lower-body fractures and ligament damage”.

The CPSC said the four deaths were a result of head trauma, and the reports showed that in at least three of those incidents the rider was not wearing a helmet.

Future Motion and the CPSC both encourage people to wear protective equipment while riding, such as helmets and knee pads.

In a section of its website dedicated to the recall, Future Motion said it had “an innovative new safety alert feature” which some Onewheel owners could install via a firmware update in the coming weeks to make their devices safer.

The feature, named haptic buzz, is an alert that electric skateboard riders can “hear and feel when experiencing certain situations that can result in a crash”, according to the firm’s website.

“Haptic buzz is designed to work in conjunction with the existing pushback safety feature to help riders further recognize that the board’s ability to balance may soon be exceeded so they can lean back and slow down to avoid crashing,” it reads.

However, it can only be used by customers with Onewheel GT, Pint X, Pint, and XR devices.

Those with original Onewheel and Onewheel+ electric skateboards, which have since been discontinued, are instead entitled to a $100 (£82) credit towards a new device – which retail between $1,050 and $2,200.

Recall requests must be submitted through a link on Future Motion’s website.

Do you own a Onewheel electric skateboard? You can get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

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