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Smartphones and pedestrian safety

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People using phones while walking

Safety hazards have been noted due to pedestrians walking slowly and without attention to their surroundings because they are focused upon their smartphones. Texting pedestrians may trip over curbs, walk out in front of cars and bump into other walkers. The field of vision of a smartphone user is estimated to be just 5% of a normal pedestrian's.[1]

Some cities have taken design measures to make the streets safer for inattentive pedestrians, including lights embedded in pavements, and dedicated lanes for smartphone-using pedestrians to use.

The pejorative term smartphone zombie has been used to describe inattentive phone users;[2] this phrase was sometimes blended to Smombie in German[3] and has seen some English usage.[4] In Hong Kong such phone users are called dai tau juk ("the head-down tribe").[5] A 2017 review considered the popular culture term in regards to the medical diagnoses of internet addiction disorder and other forms of digital media overuse.[6]

Pedestrian phone use

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A pedestrian crossing the road while looking down at a smartphone

A 2012 study at twenty intersections in Seattle, USA, found 14% of pedestrians were talking or texting on a phone.[7] A 2018 study of more than two thousand pedestrian observations at four intersections, one in New York City and three in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, found 9% of pedestrians were talking or texting on a phone while crossing; in contrast to the previous study, this study did not find that phone usage altered walking speed.[8]

In 2016 the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons created a "Digital Deadwalkers" awareness campaign, in response to the risks associated with walking across intersections and sidewalks while paying attention only to smartphones and not one's surroundings. They characterised such pedestrians as "oblivious to everyone else, so it's like they're dead-walking, sleepwalking".[9]

Car driver phone use

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This section is an excerpt from Distracted driving.[edit]
A woman texting while driving before leaving the road and crashing into a mailbox in Washington state.

Distracted driving is the act of driving while engaging in other activities which distract the driver's attention away from the road. Distractions are shown to compromise the safety of the driver, passengers, pedestrians, and people in other vehicles.[10]

Cellular device use while behind the wheel is one of the most common forms of distracted driving.[10] According to the United States Department of Transportation, "texting while driving creates a crash risk 23 times higher than driving while not distracted."[11] Studies and polls regularly find that over 30% of United States drivers had recently texted and driven.[12][13][14] Distracted driving is particularly common among, but not exclusive to, younger drivers.[12][13]

Urban design

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A warning sign in Osaka

In Chongqing, China, the government constructed a dedicated smartphone-sidewalk in 2014, separating the phone users and the non-phone users.[15][16][17] A similar scheme was introduced in Antwerp the following year.[18]

In Augsburg, Bodegraven and Cologne, ground-level traffic lights embedded in the pavement have been introduced so that they are more visible to preoccupied pedestrians,[19][20] while traffic signals at an intersection in Zagreb cast the red light downwards, producing glare on smartphone screens.[21]

In Seoul, warning signs have been placed on the pavement at dangerous intersections following over a thousand road accidents caused by smartphones in South Korea in 2014.[22] The city has also implemented traffic lights embedded into the ground to pass the indication to the pedestrian even if they are fully immersed in their smartphone experience.

  • Seoul pavement light in green
    Seoul pavement light in green
  • Seoul pavement light in green, close up
    Seoul pavement light in green, close up
  • Seoul pavement light in red
    Seoul pavement light in red
  • Seoul pavement light in red, close up
    Seoul pavement light in red, close up

Phone technology

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An app which uses the phone's camera to make the screen appear transparent can be used to provide some warning of hazards.[23]

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In October 2017, the City of Honolulu, Hawaii introduced a measure to fine pedestrians looking at smartphones while crossing the road.[24] In 2019, China introduced penalties for "activities affecting other vehicles or pedestrians" and a woman was fined 10 yuan in Wenzhou.[25]

In fiction

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Science fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote about people being distracted by miniaturised technology in the 1950s, in his stories such as The Pedestrian and Fahrenheit 451.[26][27][28] He wrote in 1958 of observing a couple walking in Beverly Hills, the woman listening to a small transistor radio "oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleepwalking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there".[29]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Japan's smartphone 'zombies' turn urban areas into human pinball", Japan Times, 17 November 2014
  2. ^ Chatfield, Tom (29 November 2016). "The new words that expose our smartphone obsessions". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
  3. ^ Wordsworth, Dot (17 December 2020). "The word of the year (whether we like it or not)". The Spectator. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
  4. ^ English, BBC Learning. "BBC Learning English - The English We Speak / Smombie". BBC Learning English. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
  5. ^ Mark Sharp (2 March 2015), "Beware the Smartphone Zombies Blindly Wandering Around Hong Kong", South China Morning Post
  6. ^ Duke, Éilish; Montag, Christian (2017), Montag, Christian; Reuter, Martin (eds.), "Smartphone Addiction and Beyond: Initial Insights on an Emerging Research Topic and Its Relationship to Internet Addiction", Internet Addiction: Neuroscientific Approaches and Therapeutical Implications Including Smartphone Addiction, Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavioral Economics, Springer International Publishing, pp. 359–372, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-46276-9_21, ISBN 9783319462769{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  7. ^ https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/19/4/232
  8. ^ https://transfersmagazine.org/magazine-article/issue-1/walking-on-the-wild-side-distracted-pedestrians-and-traffic-safety/
  9. ^ "Avoiding a digital zombie apocalypse". Modern Healthcare. 46 (1): 36. 4 January 2016. ProQuest 1754303504.
  10. ^ a b Mobile phone use: a growing problem of driver distraction (PDF). Geneva: World Health Organization. 2011. ISBN 978-92-4-150089-0.
  11. ^ "Driver Distraction in Commercial Vehicle Operations" (PDF). U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  12. ^ a b Gliklich, Emily; Guo, Rong; Bergmark, Regan W. (December 2016). "Texting while driving: A study of 1211 U.S. adults with the Distracted Driving Survey". Preventive Medicine Reports. 4: 486–499. doi:10.1016/j.pmedr.2016.09.003. ISSN 2211-3355. PMC 5030365. PMID 27656355.
  13. ^ a b "Erie Insurance distracted driving survey finds drivers doing all sorts of dangerous things behind the wheel – from PDA to taking selfies to changing clothes". theharrispoll.com. 25 March 2015. Archived from the original on 2018-09-12. Retrieved 2018-09-12.
  14. ^ "Most U.S. Drivers Engage in 'Distracting' Behaviors: Poll". HealthDay. Archived from the original on 2 October 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  15. ^ David Raven (15 September 2014), "World's first mobile phone walking lane for 'zombie pedestrians' addicted to texting", Daily Mirror
  16. ^ Heather Chen (7 September 2015), Asia's Smartphone Addiction, Singapore: BBC News
  17. ^ Leo Benedictus (15 September 2014), "Chinese city opens 'phone lane' for texting pedestrians", The Guardian
  18. ^ David Chazan (14 Jun 2015), "Antwerp introduces 'text walking lanes' for pedestrians using mobile phones", Daily Telegraph, Paris
  19. ^ Pavement lights guide 'smartphone zombies', BBC, 16 February 2017
  20. ^ Janek Schmidt (29 April 2016), "Always practise safe text: the German traffic light for smartphone zombies", The Guardian
  21. ^ "U Zagrebu postavljen semafor koji upozorava pješake zadubljene u mobitele". Tportal.hr (in Croatian). Zagreb, Croatia. HINA. 12 October 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  22. ^ Max Bearak (21 June 2016), "Seoul wants 'smartphone zombies' to read road signs instead", Washington Post
  23. ^ Peter Apps (31 March 2014), "'Transparent' iPhones: A text and walk plan for those trying to do two things at once", Independent
  24. ^ Brett Molina (25 October 2017), "Looking at your phone while crossing the street will cost you in Honolulu", USA Today
  25. ^ George Pierpoint, Kerry Allen (17 January 2019), 'Smartphone zombie' fine cheered on Chinese social media, BBC News
  26. ^ Jeff Miller (24 October 2014), "Put down the smartphone and make a real connection", Augusta Chronicle[permanent dead link]
  27. ^ Jordan Oloman (16 May 2016), "Word of the Year: SMOMBIES", The Courier[permanent dead link]
  28. ^ Hayley Tsukayama (7 June 2012), "10 Ray Bradbury predictions that came true", Washington Post
  29. ^ Ray Bradbury (2 May 1953), "The Day After Tomorrow: Why Science Fiction?", The Nation

Further reading

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  • Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to People walking with smartphones at Wikimedia Commons
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