The invention of these boards just may be the stepping-stone to transportation innovation.

While the invention of the hoverboard has become quite controversial since its release, hoverboards are in fact setting us up for the future.

Driving cars (and learning to drive a car) is not natural. We were not born to drive cars, we were born to survive. Now, since the world most of us live in today requires us to work for a living, technically driving has become an instrumentof survival for it gets us to the place we make money at or to the school where we build our careers at. However, there are areas in this world where driving is not so essential to survival, such as New York where most people take the underground subway or walk, or such as areas of Europe where city layouts are built with everything close together, meaning school, the market, and jobs are typically in walking distance and thus not much driving is necessary.

Why should we allow for driving to still be so necessary, especially in 2016 where we should have the technology to begin testing out different options (thank goodness for the current testing of Tesla’s self-driving cars, let’s keep our fingers crossed for that!). And most importantly when there are potentially more cons to driving than pros! According to a report by the Association for Safe International Road Travel, Road Crash Statistics shows that “road crashes are the single greatest annual cause of death of healthy U.S. citizens traveling abroad,” with over 37,000 people dying in road crashes each year in the United States alone (Annual United States Road Crash Statistics). On top of that, what driving gas cars does to our environment is both detrimental to our health and the state of the planet, but also irreversible.

We are essentially self-harming our planet and putting our future generations and ourselves at risk simply because we must commute to work or school every day. Now, bulldozing cities that aren’t built with supermarkets and jobs within walking distances from our houses may not be the answer for that would be much too time-consuming and costly. But we can eliminate cars on the roads by not only promoting public transportation as a more common way to commute but also with new technology that will allow us to safely transport ourselves from point A to point B, such as the hoverboard. While this piece of technology may be seen as more of a product of entertainment, they are still relatively new to our society and could still be worked on to be made safer and more reliable.

If the issues with fire hazards and accidents were to be resolved, we could potentially see a future where cars are almost outdated completely and everyone is just “hoverboarding” down the roads at safer speeds. We could then dedicate one or two lanes to people who need to take a car for longer distances or road trips and such. And if we needed the hoverboards to go a little faster to make them more convenient, we might just be able to replace them with hoverboard bikes, or hover-bikes. This could be similar to riding a motorcycle, only it would be better if they were like hoverboards because they would be less harmful to the environment and could have braking systems implemented and other features such as motion sensors to detect and warn us about collisions. If we are required to wear protective gear when using one of these futuristic devices, then collisions should not be too harmful, especially if we do not allow these to travel at unnecessarily high speeds.

The technology and innovations are nearly limitless and could lead us to a safer, more environmentally friendly, and cheaper (with no trips to the gas station required) world while the semi-autonomous Teslas are still being tested. Bikes or hoverboards would also take up less space, meaning parking lots would be smaller, or have more parking spaces, and finding street parking could become a lot easier, too! Also, since cars are like shells that hide us from the world, and since some (sports) cars can influence competitiveness, utilizing hoverboards or hover-bikes could reduce the amount of stress and competition we endure on the road today. If you could physically see the person and possibly even talk to them, at say a stoplight or something, would you still brutally cut them off or tailgate them with no regard for anyone but yourself?

Most people, whether they are generally a good person or not, feel safer being selfish or inconsiderate when they are able to hide behind a computer screen or in a car. With this technology, we could be forced to learn how to treat each other better and with more unconditional respect. Now, I know tons of people who have no problem cutting others in line or pushing or shoving at Walmart, where their face and body are exposed and not hidden in any way, but who knows if they have learned to be this way because they were once less competitive and would get taken advantage of on the road?

An article published by The Guardian in June of 2015 mentions the invention and progress of hoverbikes, which are currently being created and tested for the military. The article compares the hoverbikes to helicopters, however, they state that they would be much safer and cheaper as well.

You can check out this 2-minute video, released in June of 2015, introducing this newest technology on Youtube. The video talks about the tests and progress of this invention as well as its low cost, safety features, and convenience for long distance travel.

We should not give up on the idea of hoverboards just yet. And we should take them more seriously as a safer means of transportation. We need to work on getting cars off the roads, or at least cars that rely on being fully operated and driven by humans. We should not worry about ending up like the people in Disney’s “Wall-E”. These people were living on a ship with no motivation to workout or to do anything other than sit, eat, drink and sleep. Advertisements and big screens that ultimately brainwashed them into only sitting, eating, drinking and sleeping, were also mentally programming them.

Without any connection to the earth, nature, and fresh oxygen, I’m sure it wasn’t so hard to disconnect them from their innate spirit and purpose, which led them to be lazy and disinterested in making any kind of real or healthy life for themselves. With better transportation technology, leading us to a life of fewer accidents, lower transportation costs (no gas expenses, car payments or car insurance), and less health and environmental risks, we could begin focusing on other ways to reinvent the world and make it a better place for our children.