Councilman William Greenlee wants to do something about the young users of the popular electric scooter balance board, nicknamed the hoverboard. 

Greenlee introduced the legislation Thursday and is hopeful that it will get passed. If successful, the bill would require parents to pay a $25 fine if their children are not wearing any type of protection when riding on the hoverboard. 

“It is pretty simple, children 12 and under must wear protective equipment which includes helmet, wrist pads, elbow pads and knee pads,” Greenlee said. “The reason for this, there’s been lots and lots of reports of injuries on hoverboards, adults and children, and we think it’s particularly important to protect younger children and these things are very popular. They were maybe the top Christmas gift this past year and you know there are clearly problems.”

The hoverboard has become very popular among millennials, despite being banned in certain places and catching on fire on some occasions. Some hoverboards have even been the subject of theft in the Philadelphia area.

Amazon is even offering full refunds because of the safety backlash now associated with the hoverboards, and in December the retailer even stopped selling certain models of the popular device. 

“Rather than trying to deal with every issue, at least we started out with trying to protect children,” Greenlee said.  “It would be a $25 fine which the parent would be liable for but we envision in the beginning that there will be a lot of warnings given out, People get aware of the law and then you move from there.”

 Most of Greenlee’s fellow council members, he said, have said that the legislation is a good idea and that so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Greenlee also added that the legislation is backed by folks from the Rothman Institute and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

“You know there is always going to be a little bit of ‘get government off of our back’ kind of thing, but you know the best way I would say it is government also does have a role in protecting the safety of people,” Greenlee said. “To give a more extreme example, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with government getting involved in someone sending their kid out in this weather in a t-shirt and bare feet. So at some point it’s reasonable for government to get involved, in my opinion and a lot of other people’s opinion this is reasonable precaution.” 

Though the reasoning can be seen behind the proposed legislation, it’s still the choice of the parent if they wish to purchase safety accessories along with the hoverboard which can be priced for as much as $300.  

“It’s there choice, but if it's the law they have to make the choice of doing one of three things, get the equipment,  don’t have the kid ride the hoverboard, or take the chance of getting fined,” Greenlee said.  We’re not looking to fine, the main purpose of the bill is to really raise the awareness of why it’s necessary to do this.”

Greenlee added that he doesn’t see why the bill won’t get passed and because the hoverboard is still fairly new, he expects other legislation regarding them to follow not just in Philadelphia. 

“I don’t think it’s going to be left just at this issue,” Greenlee said.  “I think you’re going to see other regulations put in place but we wanted to start with protecting children.”