When Texting Becomes Dangerous

It seems texting can be dangerous if you happen to be walking at the same time. I would have to also add that it is as dangerous when you drive. I dislike it when I see people communicating via text message with people while driving. People already have a hard enough time driving under normal conditions.

The UK has come up with a nifty idea to protect those that love to text while they walk in London. In order to protect them from running into lamp posts or rubbish bins they have installed padding. They will gauge the successfulness of the strategy and quite possibly implement it throughout the city of London as a whole. That is if it were not a clever public relations ploy by a company to promote their services. The charade only lasted about 24 hours but it has stirred a debate on the issue.

The TIME Magazine article shed light unto the trend of texting as you walk and I felt that the only reason it isn't as common here in the U.S. is because we don't walk as much as they do in the U.K. It does entertain the idea though of what the role government should approach when it comes to protecting its residents. In New York for example a bill was, "prompted by the death of two constituents who were killed crossing the street while listening to their iPods, sought to ban pedestrians from using earphones in crosswalks in New York's large urban areas." It did not pass and State Senator Carl Kruger of Brooklyn will attempt to reintroduce it this year.

Perhaps accidents while walking are not due to people texting or listening to music on their iPod. In fact, most accidents occur because people are jay-walking. States are banning texting while driving and traffic engineers are developing methods of alerting drivers of heavily congested pedestrian traffic crossings. Whatever the end result is though legislators have taken a pro-active approach to the matter . . . and that's what really matters.