not being American I have a hard time judging this, is CPSC a serious organization that only acts if there is a real danger? To the forum experts: is this known to you? What are your thoughts on this?
would be nice if they included any technical info besides hey some ppl got hurt
onewheels are not low on the sketch scale tho
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CPSC is why Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki stopped producing 3 wheelers (ATVs) back in the 80s. So not great for Future Motion.
To be fair, they’ve also changed a lot for the good.
There are two ways I could see this going. Either they suggest safety regulations which get passed and the OneWheels become safer, or they suggest a ban entirely and that gets implemented. TBH I don’t really see how to solve the fundamental problems with these devices. If anything in the electronics fail you are going to fall, there is no mechanical backup for the balancing part.
I think the only reason esk8s haven’t been on their radar is their relatively small market share.
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IIRC they have an injury database that can be searched.
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This release reads like there’s some kind of alternate agenda, especially if you click through to the statement by this commissioner. It reads like it’s personal.
The issue here is that it uses language that is meant to scare and alarm people. It seems like a targeted attempt to damage the company.
Louis Rossmann did a video on this, and I think he was touching on something possibly true, where this agency and Future Motion were corresponding about other safety issues, and those communications went badly, so they published a sweeping statement about all their products.
If you look at the language, they say “eject”, which actually is just falling off the board. The board, like an Eskate, doesn’t have the ability to actually eject a rider.
What happens in some cases, is that the rider overpowers the motor, and the nose drops because it can’t balance the rider anymore. This drags the board to a stop and the rider usually keeps going while they fall.
Similar to how in an Eskate, if the wheel hits a divot, or something jams the belt, or the brakes engage from an ESC failure, the board will slow so much that it may as well just be totally stopped short. And the rider will fall forward while they’re still in momentum.
The issue is that the CPSC is showing scientific illiteracy in this publishing, because they are ignoring that this isn’t a defect, it’s a natural physical limit of that form factor. It’s the case with any balancing vehicle. The Onewheel and similar devices are just too small to house enough power to keep people from overpowering it in most cases.
It’s not like an electric unicycle where there is so much size and space for motor and battery, that overpowering its balancing ability is very difficult, just because there’s so much power left at most speeds.
Obviously, any death is tragic. Any serious injury is awful. There’s no downplaying that. What is concerning though is that there’s no mention of helmets or safety equipment.
Skateboards of any kind are dangerous. It’s just a fact of the product. Skateboarding is dangerous. Skating at high speeds, more so. Around traffic, infinitely more dangerous.
These are dangers known to skateboarding, and just like snowboard and downhill longboarding, the dangers are understood and riders use equipment to help reduce injury.
The Onewheel is, in my opinion, an extreme sporting device just like an Eskate, or a mountain bike.
However now that Future Motion markets it to the general public as a consumer electronics product, there are non skating people who don’t know or don’t care about learning their skill limits, or researching safety equipment.
There are also riders who I see often, saying they’ve been skating for 30 years, therefore they don’t need to wear a helmet.
There is so much unfortunate, and in my opinion, unnecessary stuff going on here.
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“Highest level of engineering” that’s why they use crappy charging connectors (Do they really have electrical engineers?).
“every generation safer than the last” that’s why their latest generation has ghosting issues that didn’t happen on the last ones.
I mean having a charging connector that might catch fire is as safe as having lead in paint 
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The CPSC is a government agency tasked with helping educate and protect the public from dangerous products and try to set safety standards for companies to use. Here’s a quick overview: Who We Are - What We Do for You | CPSC.gov
Some say they don’t do enough, taking too long and not being strict enough. Others say they do too much, stifling competition and being unreasonable.
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On the fall scale, how hard should this person learn to love the ground?
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Not surprising that they are getting noticed by the CPSC.
Whether we use the word “eject” or just say “fail to balance past 25mph” onewheels are injuring enough people to get noticed. In esk8 different things fail, but people aren’t getting injured every single day by an inherent design limitation.
If you go too fast on an esk8, you hit your top speed.
If you go too fast on a onewheel, you eat shit and break your arm.
There are probably ways to make these boards safer than they are today, and reduce injuries. You could add a top speed noise indicator or vibration function. Really anything to tell the rider “hey, don’t fucking go faster than this”.
Ask @DerelictRobot what he thinks. I remember something along the lines of stupidly dangerous fucking murder boards…
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The reality doesn’t usually make people (especially Americans) feel good.
The GT is actually really difficult to nosedive. The pushback at 19mph is so severe that it’s nearly impossible to push into the ground unless you really intend to.
The XR, was much easier, mostly because it was anemic in its power.
Most of the riders who quickly overpower them are incompetent riders who are pretty heavy.
But telling someone they’re simply too big and unskilled to play with a toy, and then suggesting they read the manual, doesn’t lead to many good results from the average American male.
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After taking a few spills from the battery undervolting (or just me not noticing the pushback) on my onewheel+ i can tell that this love has to be significantly rooted in you. Love that cannot be broken without a grounded reason.
Sketch factor is high in these things, especially since they push you back, feels like they are alive and can just drop you any second.
Jokes aside, I didn’t know that about the GT. I did nosedive an xr pretty easily a few years back. Good to hear they are improving. I’ve only ridden them a few times and they were generally great fun.
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that’s a little aggressive, eh
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Don’t EUCs have a beeper to indicate that you are riding at it’s max speed and need to stop pushing it? Feel like that would help, but I don’t have experience riding one wheels so I don’t know how apparent the pushback is. If it’s as aggressive as @TheBoardGarage says then that would be sufficient, but more safety features are definitely welcomed.
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The onewheel GT also beeps, but depending on what’s goin on it may not be possible to hear the beeps. Same as EUCs.
Tiltback is far more noticeable, and as Mario said, its really hard to overpower the OW GT’s tiltback.
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Id say i agree with everything here but the ejecting part… Id say that being propelled forward by an object , coming to a sudden stop then being moved or thrown from that object is ejection. No more different then being ejected from a bike, a push board or anything really if you crash or suddenly stop. Its just uncessarily inflammatory.
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By the way, there’s a MASSIVE disparity between the reality of “safe” in this context, and what the common language suggests.
None of these things, be them eskates, Onewheels, EUCs, scooters, etc., are safe.
Safer really is just, less dangerous.
Safety, is mitigation and minimization of risk of severe injury.
Nothing is perfect. Not an electronic, not a person’s skill, and not a helmet.
You can’t make any sport entirely safe, but people choose to incur risk when they engage in those activities. Just like one does when they put themselves and others into a vehicle.
Some things are simply dangerous because they are.
Everything we ride and build on this forum, and this community, are such.
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You can think of it that way, that’s up to you. But the Onewheel or things like it, have no more of an “ejection hazard” than a skateboard whose tiny wheel hit a rock.
The board stops moving, but your body decides “Nah, imma go another 10-20 feet.”
I’m sure there’s enough nuance to argue the semantics of falling versus ejecting, the direction of the body as it falls relative to the feet, and the difference between how a person DESCRIBES their experience of a fall and what falls usually look like on video.
I’ve seen many nosedives of all sorts. I’ve heard many people say they were “launched” or “catapulted”, but when you look at the movements, they always either flop to the ground, or run a step or two and then roll haphazardly.
All very injurious, but again, try explaining to someone who’s just experienced a fall, that it’s their fault they got hurt.
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Totally agree, but I am curious what the numbers look like. If you compared esk8, ebike, scooters, eucs, and one wheels - how many injuries per rider?
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