Should We Ban Walking While Wired?

Should We Ban Walking While Wired?

Steve Chapman
Townhall.com
Jan. 30, 2011

You've had the experience of walking along and negotiating around someone who is walking slowly, weaving or bumping into other pedestrians for an obvious reason: He or she is talking on a cell phone, listening to an iPod or texting on a Blackberry.

And you've had the natural, inevitable response to this annoyance: demanding a law to prevent it.

Oh, you haven't responded that way? Well, Carl Kruger has. The state senator from Brooklyn, N.Y., wants to make it illegal to use an electronic device while crossing a big-city street on foot. He has an ally in Arkansas state Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, who wants to ban pedestrians from wearing headphones in both ears on or near a roadway.

These measures reflect a reflexive urge to regulate even the smallest elements of human behavior, from the flavorings in cigarettes to the type of fats in restaurant meals to the number of bullets a magazine may hold. Some people apparently sit around thinking, "What's the good of having all this government power if we're not going to use it?"

The urge is at its strongest when stimulated by a belief that the behavior is not only irksome but dangerous. The rationale in this case comes from a recent increase in pedestrian fatalities, as reported by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA).

After falling for four straight years, the number rose in the first half of 2010. One theory is that many pedestrians are too distracted by their electronic habits to notice that truck bearing down on them.

Or, as Kruger told The New York Times, "We're taught from knee-high to look in both directions, wait, listen and then cross. You can perform none of those functions if you are engaged in some kind of wired activity." Actually, you can perform all those functions and dance an Irish jig, even with text messages or rock music bombarding you.

GHSA spokesman Jonathan Adkins says electronic distractions are a conceivable explanation for the increase, but there is no way to be sure. It's also premature to assume the trend is more than a passing blip. "You don't want to overreact to six months of data," he told me. "We like to have two or three years of data before we recommend significant action."

If cell phones and media gadgets were spawning an epidemic of pedestrian carnage, you'd think it would have erupted before now. Both have been in widespread use for years, and yet pedestrian deaths have declined.

It's easy to imagine other reasons for the recent spike. Unemployment was very high in 2010, and those who are out of work may walk more, to save gas and money. Maybe public transit cuts have forced some riders to take the shoe leather express. Maybe being unemployed makes you more likely to drown your sorrows and stagger into the path of a bus.

Human beings do not always respond to new technologies in predictable ways. It's possible that listening to music or sending messages makes pedestrians less aware of the dangers around them. Or possibly it discourages them from jaywalking or crossing against the light, in unconscious self-preservation.

Laws don't always work as intended. It may sound only prudent to prohibit drivers from text-messaging. But a recent study by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDA) found that in three of four states that imposed such bans, auto crashes increased.

Why? The HLDA says some motorists could be holding their phones down, out of sight of police, to do their texting, "taking drivers' eyes further from the road and for a longer time."

But even if gadgets are indeed luring pedestrians toward premature death, a ban would be an enforcement nightmare. How does a cop know if your music device is on or off when you hit the crosswalk? Or if you are talking to someone on your Bluetooth, rather than soliloquizing?

How many cops are going to make a priority of collaring ambulatory electronic addicts? Chicago forbids drivers from talking on hand-held cell phones, and Chicago streets are clogged with drivers talking on hand-held cell phones.

Unfortunately, some people with power lack judgment about its proper limits. Making laws is a bit like being a pedestrian: It's important to know when to go, but also when to stop.

Can you say nanny-state?

This is that soft-tyranny that de Tocqueville warned of.

It is indisputable that electronic gadgets make people completely oblivious to the world around them, making them easy targets for Darwinization. If you could take a time machine and give our prehistoric caveman ancestors cell phones, and taught them how to use them, humanity in the present would cease to exist because the cavemen would all be devoured by Smilodons.

I don't know why this requires a law. Back when I was a kid we had "The Green Cross Code Man" to tach children not to run across busy roads. Maybe a similar campaign to encourage people to pay attention to their surroundings when on their phone/mp3 player would be better.

Yeah, I think it's silly. Laws about it when driving, I'm fine with. This here is just more nanny state shit. Give an inch, they take a mile (or kilometer).

I don't think there should be a law either.

Except the law of natural selection.

TexasBlue wrote:Yeah, I think it's silly. Laws about it when driving, I'm fine with. This here is just more nanny state shit. Give an inch, they take a mile (or kilometer).

But when you think about it, there doesn't even need to be a law against it while driving. All states already have laws on the books for things like "failure to control" "reckless operation" and the like which can be used to prosecute those who cause an accident because they were texting and driving. Why does this need its own specific law? Should we create separate laws for every single activity that could distract a driver from the safe operation of a motor vehicle? Think of the myriad situations that cause such distractions. They are almost numberless. We could fill entire rooms with such inane laws. Or we could go with one. If you're doing something in your car that distracts you and leads to an accident - BAM - you get hit with reckless operation and failure to control. PERIOD. Think of all the paper we could save.

kronos wrote:Except the law of natural selection.

dblboggie wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:Yeah, I think it's silly. Laws about it when driving, I'm fine with. This here is just more nanny state shit. Give an inch, they take a mile (or kilometer).

But when you think about it, there doesn't even need to be a law against it while driving. All states already have laws on the books for things like "failure to control" "reckless operation" and the like which can be used to prosecute those who cause an accident because they were texting and driving. Why does this need its own specific law? Should we create separate laws for every single activity that could distract a driver from the safe operation of a motor vehicle? Think of the myriad situations that cause such distractions. They are almost numberless. We could fill entire rooms with such inane laws. Or we could go with one. If you're doing something in your car that distracts you and leads to an accident - BAM - you get hit with reckless operation and failure to control. PERIOD. Think of all the paper we could save.

True in a sense. The way I look at it (regarding cells and driving or texting and driving) is the same way we look at DUI laws. People who text are very dangerous.... much more than those who yap on phones. It's one thing to crash into someone while changing a radio station because that action is a instantaneous moment.... not a continuous one like texting..... or driving drunk/high.

TexasBlue wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:Yeah, I think it's silly. Laws about it when driving, I'm fine with. This here is just more nanny state shit. Give an inch, they take a mile (or kilometer).

But when you think about it, there doesn't even need to be a law against it while driving. All states already have laws on the books for things like "failure to control" "reckless operation" and the like which can be used to prosecute those who cause an accident because they were texting and driving. Why does this need its own specific law? Should we create separate laws for every single activity that could distract a driver from the safe operation of a motor vehicle? Think of the myriad situations that cause such distractions. They are almost numberless. We could fill entire rooms with such inane laws. Or we could go with one. If you're doing something in your car that distracts you and leads to an accident - BAM - you get hit with reckless operation and failure to control. PERIOD. Think of all the paper we could save.

True in a sense. The way I look at it (regarding cells and driving or texting and driving) is the same way we look at DUI laws. People who text are very dangerous.... much more than those who yap on phones. It's one thing to crash into someone while changing a radio station because that action is a instantaneous moment.... not a continuous one like texting..... or driving drunk/high.

But each of these actions, when they result in an accident, are simple failure to control or reckless operation. It doesn't really matter how much more dangerous one action is over another... where they result in an accident, there are already laws on the books to prosecute the offenders.

I do agree that laws against driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol are useful, in as much as one is now not just guilty of failure to control or reckless operation, but also driving while impaired.

We'll agree to disagree here. I'm one that prefers to use laws already on the books but as a former trucker, I've seen the results up close regarding the actions of cell phoners and texters.

Over here I think the texting/phoning while driving comes under the Reckless Driving sentencing. That is the highest level of dangerous driving (aside from drink driving which is a separate law). No new law was necessary, just a slight wording modification to one we already had.

The reason that the law was changed was because for a while the act of phoning while driving wasn't actually illegal until about 5 years ago.