Reading This While Walking? In Honolulu, It Could Cost You
Reading This While Walking? In Honolulu, It Could Cost
You
By TANYA MOHN OCT. 23, 2017
You see them everywhere: people walking with their eyes
glued to their mobile phone screens on busy streets. But walking and texting
can be dangerous — and cities in the United States and Europe have begun to do
something about it.
Honolulu has passed a law, which will take effect
Wednesday, that allows the police to fine pedestrians up to $35 for viewing
their electronic devices while crossing streets in the city and surrounding
county. Honolulu is thought to be the first major city to enact such a ban.
“This is really milestone legislation that sets the bar
high for safety,” said Brandon Elefante, the City Council member who proposed
the bill. Pedestrians, he said, will share the responsibility for their safety
with motorists.
In the United States, pedestrian deaths in 2016 spiked 9
percent from the year before, rising to 5,987, the highest toll on American
roads since 1990, according to federal data. One reason may be the sharp rise
in smartphone use, “a frequent source of mental and visual distraction” for
both drivers and walkers, a report by the Governors Highway Safety Association
found.
“I’m guilty myself,” said Charles Chan Massey, chief
executive of Synaxis Meetings & Events, a management firm, who uses the
time walking to and from meetings and business lunches to catch up on calls,
texts and emails.
“A lot of people do it; they know it’s risky and do it
anyway. They convince themselves that ‘this text is important,’” he said. “It’s
something we need to be aware of.”
There is a dearth of data directly linking distracted
walking to pedestrian injuries and deaths, but it seems to be a global problem,
too. Preliminary studies “give a hint to unsafe behavior,” said Dr. Etienne
Krug, director of the Department for Management of Noncommunicable Diseases,
Disability, Violence and Injury Prevention at the World Health Organization.
People who text and walk, for example, are nearly four
times as likely to engage in at least one dangerous action, like jaywalking or
not looking both ways, and take 18 percent more time to cross a street than
undistracted pedestrians. Solutions, Dr. Krug said, are “hard to legislate and
even harder to enforce.”
A number of other cities have come up with creative ways
to help protect so-called cellphone zombies, who talk, text, listen to music,
check their email and even snap selfies. Initiatives include low-tech efforts,
like edgy signs in Hayward, Calif. (“Heads Up! Cross the Street. Then Update
Facebook.”) and no-selfie zones in Mumbai, and specially designed traffic
lights in Europe and several pieces of legislation in reaction to Honolulu’s
new law.
Last month, the Board of Supervisors in San Mateo County,
Calif., unanimously passed a resolution prohibiting pedestrians’ use of
cellphones while crossing streets. It’s not enforceable, as state law governs
such issues, but David Canepa, who introduced the measure, said it was an
important springboard; the resolution is expected to go to the California
Legislature for statewide consideration in January.
“There is chaos in the crosswalks,” said Mr. Canepa, who
admits to a few close calls with distracted driving and walking himself. “I
know it’s an issue. I’ve lived it. My cellphone is my life.”
As children, he said, we are taught to look both ways
when crossing a street, but “you can’t look both ways when you’re looking down
and texting.”
Critics are concerned about personal freedom and slow to
adjust to new ideas, Mr. Canepa said. “But at the end of the day, people
understand the value of public safety,” he added. “This legislation is
practical and is common sense. It will save lives.”
At least 10 states have debated similar legislation
dealing with distracted pedestrians or bicyclists; none of it has passed,
according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Legislation is
pending in two states, the group said, and in September, New York passed a law
that directs New York City to study its efforts to educate the public on the
dangers of distracted walking.
Municipal laws are not tracked, but Rexburg, Idaho, may
have been among the first to adopt a citywide ban, in 2011. The city recorded
five pedestrian deaths in a short period in a concentrated area. It was a high
toll, given the city’s size: about 35,000 residents.
“It was a shock to our system,” said Stephen Zollinger,
Rexburg’s city attorney.
Distracted walking was suspected. Along with other safety
measures, Rexburg barred pedestrians from using hand-held devices — except
while talking — while crossing public streets, he said, and “we’ve not had a
pedestrian fatality since.”
Bodegraven, a small town near Amsterdam, tried a
different approach. This year, it embedded LED-illuminated strips in the
crosswalk at a busy intersection — right in the line of sight of people staring
at their phones. When the traffic lights turn red or green, so do the lights at
ground level, alerting pedestrians when it’s safe to cross.
The pilot program aims to anticipate trends, not reverse
them, said Dolf Roodenburg, the project leader and a traffic engineer in the
Netherlands. If it’s successful, the town hopes to install the lights at more
intersections and on bike paths, and offer them to other cities.
In Augsburg, Germany, similar lights were installed last
year after a teenager using her smartphone was struck and seriously injured by
a tram when she walked onto the tracks.
There are, of course, contrary points of view on the
effectiveness of legislating pedestrian behavior.
Janette Sadik-Khan, a former commissioner of the New York
City Department of Transportation and now transportation principal at Bloomberg
Associates, which advises mayors around the world, said laws against texting
and walking were not the answer. They have no basis in any research, are poorly
conceived and distract from the road design and driver behavior issues that are
responsible for most crashes, she said.
“It’s an easy way out. Engineering is a lot more
difficult, but a lot more efficient,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said. “Traffic safety is
very serious business in government, based in sound analysis.”
She and others recommended focusing on proven strategies
like vehicle speed reduction, which is one of the most effective ways to reduce
deaths, as survival rates are higher in low-speed collisions.
Vehicle design can also help. “In some countries, cars
are designed to be more forgiving to pedestrians,” said Deborah A. P. Hersman,
president and chief executive of the National Safety Council. Making bumpers
softer and modifying the front ends of vehicles can reduce the severity of a
pedestrian impact, but only 44 countries, mostly in Europe, require manufacturers
to apply these protections, according to the W.H.O. The United States is not
among them.
Rochelle Sobel, founder of the Association for Safe
International Road Travel, a nonprofit group, said it was important for
Americans traveling abroad to learn the local road culture. In the Dominican
Republic, pedestrians do not have the right of way, and in some countries,
drivers routinely ignore traffic regulations.
For example, they may fail to stop at intersections or
red lights, Ms. Sobel said. In many low- and middle-income countries, where
about 90 percent of the world’s road-traffic deaths occur, according to the
W.H.O., pedestrians often share poorly maintained roads with animals, carts,
cars, buses and trucks. Those roads are already high-risk environments not
designed for walking, Ms. Sobel said.
Ms. Hersman, who previously served as chairwoman of the
National Transportation Safety Board, said concerns about government overreach
often lessened with time. Laws requiring seatbelt use or restricting smoking
initially met resistance but now are widely accepted.
“It’s important to have an open mind,” she said. “Society
can move forward.”
Mr. Massey of Synaxis said it would take some convincing
for people to see value in laws to combat distracted walking.
“I agree in principle — begrudgingly,” he said. “It’s a
bit Big Brotherish. We don’t like that in this country.”
European efforts are more realistic, Mr. Massey added. “I
think the lights are brilliant,” he said. “It reflects an understanding of human
nature: People are going to do it anyway, so let’s make it safer.”
A version of this article appears in print on October 24,
2017, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Heads-Up for
Cellphone Zombies.
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