美國多所高校禁用電動滑板

One of the holiday's hottest presents is now considered contraband at many U.S. colleges.
假日期間的一款熱門禮物最近卻被禁止在美國高校使用。

At least 20 universities have banned or restricted hoverboards on their campuses in recent weeks, saying the two-wheeled, motorized scooters are unsafe. Beyond the risk of falls and collisions, colleges are citing warnings from federal authorities that some of the self-balancing gadgets have caught on fire.
最近幾周，至少20所高校都以不安全爲由，禁止學生在校園內使用電動滑板——一種驅動型兩輪滑板車。除了擔心學生摔倒或引發碰撞，校方的另一個憂慮來自美國政府的預警：這種自平衡裝置易引發火災。

"It's clear that these things are potentially dangerous," said Len Dolan, managing director of fire safety at Kean University in New Jersey. The public school of 14,000 students issued a campus-wide ban this week, telling students in an email that any hoverboards found on campus would be confiscated.
新澤西州基恩大學消防主管萊恩·多蘭表示：“這種東西顯然有潛在危險。”這座有1.4萬名學生的公立學校本週頒佈了禁令。它在給學生的郵件中稱：全校範圍內禁行電動滑板，一經發現，將予沒收。

"These things are just catching fire without warning, and we don't want that in any of our dorms," Dolan said.
多蘭稱：“這種東西毫無徵兆地就會着起火來，我們不希望這種情況發生在任何一間宿舍。”

Outright bans also have been issued at schools such as American University and George Washington University, both in Washington, D.C. Other schools said they will forbid the scooters in dorm rooms or campus buildings, a policy adopted at colleges including Louisiana State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Arkansas.
位於華盛頓特區的美利堅大學和喬治華盛頓大學也頒佈了全校範圍內的禁令。還有一些學校表示會在宿舍和教學樓內禁用電動滑板。目前路易斯安那州立大學、艾奧瓦大學和阿肯色大學都是採取的這種部分禁令。

After banning hoverboards from dorms in December, officials at the University of Hartford in Connecticut are now considering a full ban because of concerns over how to store them safely, said David Isgu, a school spokesman. Some of the reported fires have occurred while the boards were being charged.
位於康涅狄格州的哈佛大學去年12月已針對電動滑板發佈了宿舍禁令，目前正在考慮頒佈全面禁令。該校發言人大衛·易思谷稱，考慮全面禁令是因爲擔心這種東西不好儲放。已有數起火災是由滑板充電引起的。

Bryce Colegrove, a sophomore at Shawnee State University in Ohio, got an email from his school telling students to leave their hoverboards at home after the holidays. It was bad timing for Colegrove, who had just received one as a gift from his girlfriend and had even plotted his new routes to class.
布萊斯·科爾格羅夫是俄亥俄州立肖尼大學的大二學生，他收到了校方的郵件，要求他們假期後把滑板留在家裏，不要帶到學校。對科爾格羅夫來說，這一禁令太不是時候了，因爲他剛從女友那裏得到了一個滑板禮物，已經計劃好去教室的新路線了。

"Honestly I was really disappointed," said Colegrove, 20. "I don't think it's right to ban them. I mean, it's a college campus; it's not a high school."
20歲的科爾格羅夫稱：“老實說，我太失望了。我覺得學校不該禁滑板。這已經是大學了，又不是高中。”

Others took to social media to voice their frustration, with some saying they planned to bring their scooters to school anyway.
還有學生到社交媒體上吐槽，有些人已經決定不顧禁令，照舊帶滑板去學校。

Hoverboards already have been banned by the three largest U.S. airlines, citing potential fire danger from the lithium-ion batteries that power them.
美國已有三家大型航空公司禁止電動滑板登機，認爲這種安了鋰電池的裝置有火災隱患。

Vocabulary
contraband：禁運的；非法買賣的
hoverboard：根據文章看，這裏指“電動滑板車”