Pedestrian Phone Follies

The ban on non-hands-free cellphones in cars has been in place for more than two weeks now, and in another few weeks, the police will start actively enforcing the law by slapping fines on drivers yakking or texting while behind the wheel.

But the New York Times has come out with a timely reminder about another hazard of our distracted age -- pedestrians using mobile devices while walking.

You see them everywhere. Gazing down at their phone while punching in a number; stumbling into the road while grooving to tunes. According to the Times, “pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects or people that are right in front of them”. It’s no joke. Emergency room visits caused by preoccupied pedestrians are on the rise. And, with the growing ubiquity of smartphones and their myriad applications, it can only get worse.

One of the reasons for our inability to walk and talk at the same time, it seems, is that “a cellphone conversation taxes not just auditory resources in the brain but also visual functions," the Times says. That combination "prompts the listener to, for example, create visual imagery related to the conversation in a way that overrides or obscures the processing of real images.”

Curiously, the article is silent about gadget-using cyclists, which seems to be becoming a growing problem, at least according to my non-scientific, anecdotal evidence. More and more I see cyclists holding phone conversations while navigating busy streets (or sidewalks - shame!) or deaf to the world while listening to their iPods. Maybe the Times is saving that horror story for another day.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that cellphone-wielding pedestrians or cyclists are worse than their driving counterparts -- far from it. They’re much less likely to cause serious harm to themselves or others. And I confess to changing music tracks or keying in numbers on my iPhone will walking downtown or in my West End neighbourhood. I’ll try to do better in the future, I promise. We all need to become more aware of our immediate surroundings and rein in our compulsion to multitask. I think it’s called common sense.