file photo by Boyd Loving one of many pedestrian accidents in the Village
By JANE E. BRODY DECEMBER 7, 2015 5:45 AM
While distracted driving has commanded lots of attention (albeit not a commensurate amount of correction), another digital hazard — distracted walking — is on the rise, with sometimes disastrous consequences.
We’ve all seen it, and often felt it, as people looking down to text, tweet, read or play games on their smartphones crash into us, typically as we walk in a straight line and they don’t. A study by Eric M. Lamberg and Lisa M. Muratori at Stony Brook University found that distracted walkers veer off course by as much as 61 percent while texting and walking.
When about to collide with a distracted walker, I used to politely say, “Excuse me,” to get the person’s attention. But I’ve become so annoyed by this behavior that I now harshly proclaim, “Watch where you’re going!” My friends of a certain age are frankly scared that they will be knocked down and injured by a distracted walker.
Distracted walking is most common among millennials aged 18 to 34, but women 55 and older are most likely to suffer serious injuries, including broken bones, according to a 2013 study in Accident Analysis & Prevention. Visits to emergency rooms for injuries involving distracted pedestrians on cellphones more than doubled between 2004 and 2010 and continues to grow. Among more than 1,000 people hospitalized after texting while walking, injuries included a shattered pelvis and injuries to the back, head and neck.
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/its-not-just-drivers-being-driven-to-distraction/
