Dangerous Distracted Pedestrians!

Flopping Aces ^ | 05-14-12 | Wordsmith

[Starman417]

I guess smartphones are now going to have to come with smartusers:

Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.

“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.

Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets.

~~~

Two professors at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a study on walking and texting. They found texters are 60 percent more likely to veer off line than non-texters.

“We want to raise awareness that a real disruption occurs because of texting,” Eric Lamberg, co-author of the study, told Long Island Business News. “Texting disrupts your ability much more than does talking.”

So walking and talking on the phone is still okay? How about reading a book and walking? Isn't that a walker distraction as well? Dan Seifert notes that walking and chewing gum at the same time is still allowed. Phew!

3 "idiot" (I don't really know if they were idiots or not) pedestrians vs. about 35,000 potential walkers each day. Is it really necessary to create a new law that affects the rest of society to protect people and society from the lack of sound judgment on the part of the few? Is this not a case of an over-reaction law? Or does it make sound sense? Texting and walking, texting and running, texting and doing just about anything at the same time....potentially hazard to society?

With apparently 74 pedestrian crashes last year in Ft. Lee, maybe this is unique to Ft. Lee residents? Looks like it's the problem of jaywalking in general that's at issue in that town:

Pedestrians contributed to 20 percent of all traffic fatalities in New Jersey in 2010, the last year for which complete state police statistics have been compiled. Only distracted driving contributed to more deaths — 23 percent.

Combining both factors — as happens when a driver on a cellphone meets a texter on foot — too often leads to trips to hospitals or morgues, yet cops traditionally give breaks to walkers.

“If you give a pedestrian a ticket, he looks at you like you have two heads,” said Fair Lawn Patrolman Tim Franco, who heads the New Jersey Police Traffic Officers Association. “But when you have a serious public safety situation, as in Fort Lee, I’m glad they’re doing this.”

As statewide traffic figures suggest, almost every town has a serious pedestrian safety problem. That’s why the Legislature passed a law in 2009 requiring drivers to stop — not simply yield — to walkers at painted crosswalks.

Dozens of towns, including Fort Lee, Bergenfield and Paramus, sent decoy cops to high-traffic intersections to enforce the law. A state-funded study of the Montclair sting suggested that motorists continued to give walkers the right of way long after the program ended.

But not everybody believes this change suggests success. Drivers often complain that the law has emboldened pedestrians to cross streets — at crosswalks and elsewhere — as if they always have the right of way, sometimes long after traffic lights turn against them.

Indeed, fatality statistics suggest that the biggest pedestrian safety issue isn’t at crosswalks. state police figures for 2010 showed 60 percent of pedestrian deaths occurred either in places where crossing was prohibited or because of unspecified “other pedestrian action in roadways.” That’s cop-speak for doing something stupid, like leaping over a barrier or some other form of jaywalking. Figures for 2009 were similar.

[snip]

So do we need more and more cumbersome laws to protect people from their own idiocy?

Who's responsible: Alexa or the state of New York:

[Moltke]

“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,”

That's what lampposts and fire hydrants were invented for.

[BigCinBigD]

I regularly almost kill several morons a year that either just walk out in to the street. Of apparently. Don’t know the Red hand means DON’T walk.

[Jack Burton007]

I’ve lost count of the number of idiots walking the halls of the company I work for with their faces stuck in their “smart” phones. They walk around like zombies shuffling along in everyone’s way and they look mad if you say loudly “excuse me” as you try to get around them.

I want to slap them upside their stupid heads.

[ex91B10]

Darwin Shrugged.