Stopped by the police!

There has been one nagging doubt when I received my longboard. Like a lot of other electric skateboards, control is achieved by a Bluetooth wireless controller. And also like a lot of other electric skateboard models the controller is a pistol grip speed controller with trigger which can be said to resemble very much like a gun. I can see why the electric skateboard manufacturers make them as pistol grips. Its a natural fit to the hand.

However, the controller shape has slightly concerned me from the start. Imagine how it looks, UK on a continuing high terror alert, a  6 foot 3 tall bloke speeding passed on a skateboard, rucksack on his back and what appears to be a gun in his hand.

Well, after the unfortunate events in Northen Barvaria, Germany, where a teenage Afghan refugee armed with an axe and knife injured four people on a train in July, there is now  a much stronger police presence at my train station. I don't skate on the roads but rather through the park to get to the train station. So I didn't expect to get stopped by the police for any reason. But, I got stopped in the train station whilst walking up the stairs to my platform! Admittedly I was walking up the stairs in a speedy fashion as I was late for my train.

The VoLo-E longboard has Velcro sticker pad attachments on its underside to fix the Bluetooth controller to when you are carrying it. I carry the board by the three finger holes made especially for carrying. I typically carry the board so that the underside which includes the motor, battery etc. are on the side facing my leg (helps reduce stares from passers by). The "gun" is also therefore on the underside.

Whilst climbing the stairs I heard someone from behind me  say "Excuse me sir please can you stop". The station is incredibly busy so I had no thought that question was addressed to me. The question repeated another time by which time I had jumped above the last step and was on the platform. I swung round after my shoulder was tapped. Imagine my surprise to see an armed policeman standing there and pointing at the underside of my skateboard. He asked me to explain what the Bluetooth controller was and said he had stopped me because it looked like a gun. Ok, it does look like a gun, but I am sure if that policeman really thought it was a gun, that he wouldn't have addressed me so politely. Rather, I would have been face down in the ground with cuffs on my hands. Anyway, I explained what it was, that it controlled my longboard, and that it was an electric skateboard - It seemed the policeman had never seen one before. After about five minutes explanation he let me go on my way. But of course, my train had departed, and I was faced with a half an hour wait until the next train.

Need to think how to change the look of this controller......