Gyeonggi Province Confirms Safety Standard Compliance Through Electric Kickboard Product Inspection

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Park No-hun] Gyeonggi Province has conducted quality inspections on electric kickboards to create a safe and rational consumer environment.

The quality inspection was conducted by randomly selecting 10 top-selling electric kickboard products from online shopping malls and submitting them to professional inspection agencies from August through early November.

According to the inspection results, 6 out of 10 products were found to be non-compliant, failing to meet some of the 22 major inspection items in the "Safety Standards for Safety Confirmation Target Consumer Goods" announced by the National Institute of Technology and Quality under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

Electric kickboards are safety confirmation target products under the "Act on Safety Management of Electrical Appliances and Consumer Goods," requiring compliance with related safety standards and receiving KC certification (National Integrated Certification Mark).

The reasons for non-compliance include ▲improper colors of lighting devices including side reflectors ▲lack of driving distance per single charge recorded in user manuals ▲insufficient hill-climbing capability. All 6 products are classified as "minor defects" according to KC certification standards, but administrative measures such as improvement orders can be taken in accordance with applicable laws.

The province plans to share the inspection results with the National Institute of Technology and Quality, which oversees overall product safety management, to discuss cooperation matters, and will notify the relevant cities and counties with authority to take measures against products that fail to meet safety standards.

Kim Ji-ye, Director of the Fair Trade Bureau of Gyeonggi Province, stated, "We newly launched quality inspections of consumer goods this year and selected electric kickboards as the first inspection subject," and added, "Since the quality inspection project for consumer goods is included as a policy task in the '2022 Gyeonggi Province Consumer Policy Implementation Plan' to secure consumer safety that is tangible to the public, we will continue quality inspections next year."