This is an interesting and controversial piece of news that popped up on our radar. The city of Fort Lee, New Jersey, has started issuing $85 tickets to pedestrians caught sending text messages while walking. The move is based on the premise that the lack of concentration caused by texting while walking increases the likelihood of pedestrians veering off course or failing to recognise danger and subsequently causing accidents.
In a way I can see what the city of Fort Lee is trying to do here and why. Everyone’s been in that situation where they’ve had to dodge some mindless texter who walks down the road without so much as occasionally looking upwards. Pay enough attention and you may even see an alarming number of people walking out on to roads after only giving the most cursory of glances around to spot oncoming traffic. I have personally seen a pedestrian hit by a car because they stepped out on to a road without properly assessing the situation while engrossed in their phone, and it was an old alpha-numeric Nokia to boot. But does that mean I agree with this law? No.
While I agree that not looking where you’re going to the point where you are completely oblivious to your surroundings verges on criminal stupidity, most people are more than capable of operating their cell phone and still looking where they’re going. It’s laughably easy to ensure that you stop focusing on your phone when approaching or crossing a road. There are also a myriad of reasons you could be using your phone for something that requires less focus than texting. For instance: changing tracks on your music app. This simple task can require you to look at your screen and use your thumbs or fingers to select a specific song, even if it’s only for anything up to ten or fifteen seconds.
Another problem we have with this is that people who suddenly stop walking to text mid-stride are also extremely annoying and potential causers of accidents. Once again I have personally walked in to more than my fair share of people in a crowd who, with no warning whatsoever, suddenly stopped walking to respond to a text. I’m not exactly the world’s smallest guy, so you can imagine how this situation may cause injuries, especially on a crowded sidewalk next to a busy street. My point here is that oblivious people seem to remain oblivious and cause problems, no matter if they’re walking or standing still.
The argument can also be made that texters are not the only ones at fault of walking irresponsibly. I’ve seen people obliviously walking while reading books (both eBooks and real books), window shopping, checking out posters, walking dogs, talking, taking care of kids or even doing a combination of these things. If we’re placing a ban on one action that causes people to walk carelessly then failure to take action on others throws the whole situation in to question. Furthering that, since shop windows and movie posters are designed to grab your attention and distract you would the designers and owners of these distractions also be liable? But we’re getting in to the territory of reductio ad absurdum herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum, so let’s move on.
Of course the controversial law was not passed without merit. Just this year alone over 20 pedestrians in Fort Lee have been hit by cars because they didn’t look up from their phones. While the harsh claim could be made that if a person isn’t willing to watch where they’re going that they should suffer the consequences, consideration has to be made for the (presumably) innocent drivers who have had their lives affected, possibly significantly, by hitting a pedestrian.
So far police have apparently only been targeting those that have been seen to be ‘dangerously distracted’, rather than folk who are actually looking where they’re going while using their device. I agree that this is justifiable and that people who are criminally oblivious to their surrounds to such a point that they endanger themselves and others should be reprimanded. But there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping a person from being fined simply for failing to stop walking when tapping a thumb to their screen or keypad.
I can only imagine what peak-hour on a busy sidewalk would look like if suddenly everyone had to stop walking every time they wanted to do anything on their device, no matter how brief the task.
As with most laws it’s tricky to weigh up every argument for and against. Overall I’d just like there to be some more protection for the casual user by strictly defining what ‘dangerously distracted’ fully entails. That way we can reprimand those guilty of acting irresponsibly, while allowing responsible users to continue their plugged-in existence in our increasingly plugged-in world.
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