大家可能知道scooter是滑板车，glider是滑翔机，但你见过hoverboard吗？这个高科技新产品通俗点叫做平衡车，官方译为悬滑板，这么新鲜酷炫的话题产品在西方世界引起了不小的争议。今天墨尔本文波雅思带大家赏析一则有关hoverboard是否能上路的趣闻：
One American City Wants Those God-awful （非常可怕的）Hoverboards Off the Streets Finally. （这是有多讨人嫌）
So is the hoverboard—more accurately, the self-balancing electric scooter（英文定义，自我平衡的电动滑板车）—really illegal in New York City or what? That was the question raised by a recently posted (and since deleted) （“秒删”）tweet by the NYPD’s 26th Precinct, which said, “Be advised that the electric hoverboard is illegal as per NYC Admin. Code 19-176.2.”
Turns out, as Gothamist （博客网站）noted, the answer is oddly complicated（复杂得奇怪）.
Some NYPD officers aren’t even sure what to make of it（是神马造的）. Gothamist cited a report by CBS New York, in which one officer said the police just didn’t know, because it was “new technology.”
Both Gothamist and BuzzFeed concluded it’s perfectly legal to own a hoverboard （买不犯法）. However, as BuzzFeed’s Joseph Bernstein put it: “The city’s Department of Transportation does consider hoverboards motor vehicles, and any motor vehicle that cannot be registered with the New York State is illegal to ride in any area that allows registered motor vehicle traffic, including streets, sidewalks, highways, parking lots.”（注意学习添加信息的方式）
Turns out （省略it，口语适用）this issue hasn’t just come up in the city that never sleeps（地道描述纽约这样的大城市）, where dead-eyed（盲目的） tiny scooter jockies（俚语，“驾驶者”）coast along （习语，毫不费力做某事）like pod people（习语，“冷面机器人”，“外星人杀手”，来自一科幻片） thumbing their Spotify playlists（某播放器音乐列表）, but it’s been an issue across the sea（海外国家）, as well. The Guardian reported in October that Britain’s Crown Prosecution found hoverboards “too unsafe to ride on the road, but too dangerous to ride on the pavement（人行道）.”（请大家注意unsafe和dangerous的指向性区别，一个是对自己，一个是对路人）
Anyone concerned about American or U.K. hoverboard statutes might try Air Wheel’s “hover box,” which is basically just a box shielding （保护起来）the reason your feet seem to be floating from（飘过） the prying eyes （侦测，窥探）of the local law.
Or, you know, not buzz around （习语，闹哄哄地跑来跑去）in public on your funny little scooty-scoot（嘲笑说法）, which never was, and never will be an actual hoverboard（过去不是，将来也不会是，意思是会飞的才算真正的hoverboard）.
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