--- title: Hoverboards Are Illegal On London Roads, Police Say description: A Metropolitan Police twitter account sent out a tweet warning that it is illegal to ride the transportation devices in public. canonical: https://time.com/4069830/hoverboards-illegal-london/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-12T15:18:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:25:51.645Z og:title: Don't Even Think About Riding Your Hoverboard Around London og:description: Put your 'Back to the Future' dreams on the backburner og:url: https://time.com/4069830/hoverboards-illegal-london/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Don't Even Think About Riding Your Hoverboard Around London twitter:description: Put your 'Back to the Future' dreams on the backburner twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Don't Even Think About Riding Your 'Hoverboard' Around London > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 12, 2015 3:18 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 12, 2015 3:18 PM UTC ‘Hoverboards’ are now illegal to ride in public in Britain, according to [Metropolitan Police](https://twitter.com/MPSSpecials/status/653250273440346112?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw). The wheeled Segway-esque vehicles have become wildly popular over the past few months, showing up everywhere from [NBA locker-rooms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9WgduaeYog) to the YouTube and Vine videos of social media stars. And this isn’t even the first time law enforcement has gotten involved in the craze. In August, rapper [Wiz Khalifa](http://time.com/4007404/wiz-khalifa-hoverboard-lax-handcuffed/) said he was handcuffed by officers for trying to ride one of the self-balancing scooters through security at Los Angeles International Airport. Now, [Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/metropolitan-police-warn-hoverboards-illegal-london-2015-10?r=UK&IR=T) reports that the Twitter account [MPS Specials](https://twitter.com/mpsspecials) sent out a tweet on Sunday night warning that it is against the law to ride the transportation devices on public streets and sidewalks. > [](https://twitter.com/MPSSpecials/status/653250273440346112) The tweet also links to [further guidance](http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p%5Fto%5Fr/road%5Ftraffic%5Foffences/#dot) from The Department of Transport. Basically, due to laws originally enacted to regulate Segway transport, it’s only legal to ride your hoverboard on private property with the landowner’s permission. However, Simon Benson, of hoverboard distributor Ghetto Gadgets, told [T_he Guardian_](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/12/hoverboards-illegal-pavements-roads-scooters) that the clarification of the law will only raise sales of the devices. “Clearly customers need to take advice, but millennials are not going to take kindly to the authorities using a law that pre-dates the penny-farthing to tell them what they can or can’t do on the streets of Britain,” Benson said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4069830/hoverboards-illegal-london/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4069830/hoverboards-illegal-london/"},"headline":"Don't Even Think About Riding Your 'Hoverboard' Around London","datePublished":"2015-10-12T15:18:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:25:51.645Z","description":"Put your Back to the Future dreams on the backburner","url":"https://time.com/4069830/hoverboards-illegal-london/","keywords":["Newsfeed","police","Illegal","london","Law","Laws","Hoverboards"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4069830/hoverboards-illegal-london/","name":"Don't Even Think About Riding Your 'Hoverboard' Around London"}}]}] ```