Smartphones May Be To Blame For Unprecedented Spike In Pedestrian Deaths, Says Report (cnn.com) 200
According to a report from the Governors Highway Safety Association, the United States saw its largest annual increase in pedestrian fatalities since such record keeping began 40 years ago. "The [association] estimated there were 6,000 pedestrian deaths in 2016, the highest number in more than 20 years," reports CNN. "Since 2010, pedestrian fatalities have grown at four times the rate of overall traffic deaths." From the report: The thing that has changed dramatically in recent years is smartphone use. The volume of wireless data used from 2014 to 2015 more than doubled, according to the Wireless Association. Drivers and pedestrians who are distracted by their smartphones are less likely to be aware of their surroundings, creating the potential for danger. The Governors Highway Safety Association looked at data from the first six months of 2016 that came from 50 state highway safety offices and the District of Columbia. The complete data will be available later this year. The findings come as traffic safety experts have called for totally eliminating deaths on roadways. Near-term solutions include designing roads and vehicles to be safer. Cutting down on speeding and drunk driving are obvious targets.
Darwin at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Let Darwin do his work... ;-)
Re: Darwin at work (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as it's the victim that's at fault it makes sense.
But modern cars requires less and less attention to drive which forces the driver to keep the mind occupied on other things to not fall into a vegetative state.
And cars today also have a lot of touch screens, which also requires the driver to look away from the traffic.
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As long as it's the victim that's at fault it makes sense.
Of course, the thing about cellular phones is that their use by either the driver or the pedestrian can lead to an unfortunate vehicular altercation.
Mobile personal computers aside, there are many forms of distraction... the person in the four thousand pound machine would seem to have the burden of attention placed upon him, fairly or otherwise.
It's mostly fair, since many drivers eventually become pedestrians.
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As long as it's the victim that's at fault it makes sense.
But modern cars requires less and less attention to drive which forces the driver to keep the mind occupied on other things to not fall into a vegetative state.
Cars still have a steering wheel. And pedals. The last feature that changed those basic pay-attention-dumbass requirements was the advent of cruise control, which came out decades ago, long before the smartphone.
Drivers today are still obligated to take the same driving test as their parents did, because shit hasn't changed.
And cars today also have a lot of touch screens, which also requires the driver to look away from the traffic.
And many of those touchscreen features are disabled when the car is in motion, or are extended with controls that are on the steering wheel, minimizing the risk.
I think we can dispel
Re: Darwin at work (Score:5, Informative)
It's not on the driver when a witless fuckstick walks out into traffic when they wouldn't have right of way.
In many countries it is. Coincidentally those countries are also the ones with the lowest death rate for pedestrians and cyclists.
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Actually, the ruling is if there is a pedestrian or cyclist (or any legal user of the highway, so moped, ridden horse etc are included) *already* on the road, then they have right of way.
Those not on the road *do not* have right of way over those who are. You can't just walk out into traffic.
However, if a pedestrian is at a designated crossing point such as a zebra crossing those on the road are to stop *if safe to do so*. That still doesn't mean a pedestrian can blithely cross without first looking at that
Re: Darwin at work (Score:4, Informative)
However, if a pedestrian is at a designated crossing point such as a zebra crossing those on the road are to stop *if safe to do so*. That still doesn't mean a pedestrian can blithely cross without first looking at that point, though many do.
It really depends on where you are. In the city of Santa Cruz, the driver is pretty much always at fault unless you have dashcam footage that proves that they were trying to commit suicide under your car.
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Happens with vehicle to vehicle as well, where people will stop, pop it in reverse, then claim they got rear-ended.
Hopefully they set off their airbags, or at minimum, yours. Because any time an airbag goes off, freeze frame data is stored which shows, among other things, what gear a car is in and in which direction it is moving.
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Freeze frame data? Is that a technical term?
Yes, yes it is. Not only will you find numerous examples if you develop the wherewithal to google "airbag freeze frame", but it's the terminology you will find used in the class to prepare you for the ASE A-6 exam, on which I got a 96. Why do you ask?
Re: Darwin at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the ruling is
completely and entirely irrelevant because I was talking about some of the many countries OTHER than the USA where in many cases pedestrians either have right of way, or in cases where they don't have right of way often have guardian angle laws that mean the driver is liable by default unless proven otherwise by arduous court cases.
For instance, if their view of the oblivious pedestrian was obscured by a parked vehicle
Then in most countries the driver was driving recklessly and not adjusting his style to suite the conditions at the time. Often the driver here would be found liable even in countries who do consider the driver to have right of way over someone stepping into traffic. Likewise on your zebra crossing example.
Re: Darwin at work (Score:5, Funny)
guardian angle laws
That's acute way of looking at the problem.
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I wouldn't say "cute" as much as novel. By holding driver accountable for every injury instead of putting them in the right it breeds a very different kind of approach to driving. I'm from Australia where we had no such laws so it was amazing seeing the difference in other countries. In Amsterdam two weeks ago a pedestrian was killed when he walked onto the road. I know this because it made the national news in the Netherlands.
Re: Darwin at work (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the appropriate response here is "whoosh".
Though to be honest, "acute" would only be appropriate if the guardian angle was between 0 and 90 degrees. If it was between 90 and 180, "obtuse" would be more fitting.
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Oh woopse, time for a spelling improving coffee :-)
Re: Darwin at work (Score:5, Informative)
For example in the UK when turning into a side road you must give way to all existing road users, and this includes pedestrians crossing the road. Unfortunately a lot of drivers don't understand this, much in the same way as they think putting their indicator on generates a right to pull out etc. rather than simply being a notification to other road users of your intentions, and nobody is actually required to give way to you whatsoever.
My tale in Austria (Score:2)
I was in Austria - Salzberg (Cool city for history buffs!) and walking and I came to a crosswalk and stopped to let a car go by.
He screeched to a halt and I just looked at him - bewildered since I'm an American.
With an extremely angry expression on his face, he waved frantically for me to cross. He would NOT drive through that crosswalk until I crossed. You bet your ass I did - I ran.
As a driver here in the States., I do that since IT'S THE LAW IN MY STATE OF GA. I get honked at, tailgated and treated like
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It's not on the driver when a witless fuckstick walks out into traffic when they wouldn't have right of way.
In many countries it is. Coincidentally those countries are also the ones with the lowest death rate for pedestrians and cyclists.
Also coincidentally, those countries have the highest rate of innocent people convicted of murder because fucksticks forced (the laws of physics be a harsh mistress) someone else to murder them.
See? It all balances out in the end. Not just one life ruined from stupidity anymore. We all share in the results of their stupidity.
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Also coincidentally, those countries have the highest rate of innocent people convicted of murder because
Nope. They have the lowest number of crashes. But good work talking out of your arse.
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A better way to explain it is if a pedestrian walks in front of your vehicle within your stopping distance, then a collision with the pedestrian is guaranteed unless you can swerve and hit a baby buggy or plow into a bus stop instead.
Actually, as you learn and become a good driver, you will just know which pedestrians are likely to do something absolutely stupid, and slow down your speed, and/or have an escape plan ready that doesn't involve the baby or the bus.
Smartphone using drivers (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest problem is the infrastructure, drivers and cars not pedestrians, so I think you are missing the point completly.
I've often wondered why people look away from the act of random terror that cars subject us to in everyday life, instead the victims get blamed. At some point you have to understand that cars are a big health problem.
i suspect drivers too (Score:3)
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I can see the pedestrian traffic fatalitues in germany only slightly increased http://www.bast.de/EN/Publicat [www.bast.de]... [www.bast.de] granted i do not have the 2016 numbers but this is still below the 2005 numbers.
On one street, they had two fatalities because pedestrians were using their phone and stepped right into traffic at a red pedestrian traffic light. So they installed red and green LEDs in the ground. Where you can't miss them when you're on your phone and looking in the right direction.
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One interesting thing I did manage to glean from the statistics is
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One interesting thing I did manage to glean from the statistics is that fully 1/3rd of all deaths of pedestrians did not involve another party, but were caused by falls or bumping into a stationary object. Numbers for cyclists are about the same. And the vast majority of injuries did not involve another party. Cars are a big health problem but the numbers show a pretty steady overall decline (in terms of accidents as well as emissions, I might add); hopefully cars will drop below clumsiness as a cause of death of pedestrians.
Emissions is actually getting worse at least if you count from 1970, and death by the emissions from cars is going up. In Sweden are about 300% more people killed by pollution from cars than from actual accidents.
Not sure what you want stats on, it's pretty hard to use traffic statistics because there are lots of strange pitfalls. E.g. cyclists injured by dooring is counted as a self inflicted injury in some countries.. But yes being injured by infrastrucure and bad maintenance is a real thing, but at leas
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That sounds plausible but I'd like to see some research into that. I had a quick look at some traffic statistics but couldn't find anything on pedestrians stepping into traffic whilst looking at their smartphone. Problem is that almost all accidents involving a pedestrian and a motor vehicle are attributed to the driver in the statistics (over here, it's almost always the driver's insurer who pays regardless of who caused the accident).
One incident happened near me recently, a woman on her cell phone stepped off the sidewalk with a truck turning wide and killed her. She evidently did not even look and the driver had to watch his truck rear end with his mirror to make sure it cleared a car in the intersetction. It appears to be primarily her fault as the driver would never expect her to step out in front of him, but the driver has some blame. But we'll never know because everyone gets 'lawyered up' and I assume they settle. So it may never
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So we should spend millions on childproofing the roads because alleged adults cannot be assed to look left and right before running after some pokemon?
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So we should spend millions on childproofing the roads because alleged adults cannot be assed to look left and right before running after some pokemon?
The people who are killed are not the ones using smartphones.
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Not? So that organ donor that jumped in front of my car because his eyes were glued to the damn smartphone could have killed me while getting away without a scratch if I didn't hit the brakes like there's no tomorrow (and most likely there would not have been one for him)?
Somehow I doubt it.
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Not? So that organ donor that jumped in front of my car because his eyes were glued to the damn smartphone
You must drive really fast if you hit people so hard that their eyes are litereally glued to your smartphone.
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Figure of speech. Jeesh.
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Sorry, I have to reluctantly admit that I don't have a clue. I was in the car next to you, and didn't see a thing. Your traffic incident doesn't sound as interesting as the video I was watching, anyway.
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So we should spend millions on childproofing the roads because alleged adults cannot be assed to look left and right before running after some pokemon?
I find these allegations to be seriously overblown. If you look one direction and walk another, you're failing at walking. Unless you have an infirmity which prohibits it, failing at walking is failing at life, because it's literally the primary activity for which we evolved. We're better at it than anything else, which is hard to believe when you see someone trip over a curb because they're answering their gmail.
I just went to a cheese festival in Petaluma. I have never seen so many adults fail at adulting
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The biggest problem is people like you, thinking only yourselves.
Thank you! But I'm not sure how thinking for yourself would be a problem..
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Let Darwin do his work... ;-)
Much as I like to sit down at a table at work with six other people who all have their noses buried in their smartphones and annoy them by starting a verbal conversation (and quite a lot of the time they are visibly annoyed at having to take their noses out of their little glowing tablets and talk) I'm also in favour of preventing unnecessary loss of life. To that end kind of liked this idea:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
The cafeteria at one of those ultra cool tech companies where everybody is und
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Wish the scoring system went higher than 5.
Considering the people I've seen walking along with their device out in front of their nose, oblivious to EVERYTHING, stumbling down the street...
If you're THAT addicted to your device that you completely zone out from reality, yeah, you need to do the gene pool a favor and die off.
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Let Darwin do his work... ;-)
Just as wind turbines are selecting for smarter birds.
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Let Darwin do his work... ;-)
But Darwin works too slowly.
This may not be solely due to pedestrians not paying attention because they're head is too far buried in their phones. A lot of drivers do the same and are depending on others to avoid the collision. The person who gets hit may not necessarily be the one on the phone.
Beyond that, there is a cost we all have to bear from preventable deaths, most western countries will shut down roads, have emergency services, A&E triage, medivac choppers all of which have a direct or ind
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And of course you have some evidence that "it's moe likely that it's the car drivers"? If so, could you provide it?
Note that if it's the car drivers, one might expect a similar spike in traffic accidents, which we haven't seen....
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As we have plenty of smartphones and plenty of smombies, that indicates that there's something else happening in the U.S. that's increasing fatalities, but it'd be premature to blame smartphones.
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Let Darwin do his work... ;-)
Well, it's not like we Award this behavior or anything.
Oh, wait...
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I agree. I have been nearly run over by these morons as a _pedestrian_ several times now. People that are incapable to paying attention to direct threats (moving objects that may reasonably be expected to hit them) are not fit to run around on their own.
And it can get even worse: There was a case in Germany recently, where a railway worker that was distracted by some mobile game killed a lot of people by making two trains collide. This moron gave specially designed "go ahead" signals without making sure (th
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We call that "thinning the herd."
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Nothing of value is being lost.
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Nothing of value is being lost.
How about the mental health of the driver that now has to live with the fact that they killed someone? It might not be their fault at all but even so that sort of thing tends to weight heavily on people.
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I guess so.
Also: Pedestrians don't usually have insurance so he might have to pay to fix his car, too.
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... of having their products reliably MURDER those poor wittew miwweniaw pedestrians merely minding their own business.
Go home, Elmer Fudd, you are drunk.
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That's one part of the equation. That's also why fiddling with your cellphone while operating a vehicle carries a pretty heavy fine, at least in sane and civilized countries.
The other half is idiots with their eyes on the phone instead of traffic while walking about. At least they get an immediate feedback for their stupidity.
Re: Darwin at work (Score:4, Interesting)
When I'm out walking, I expect drivers to stop at stop signs and red lights, but I have to trust that they will.
When I'm out driving I expect pedestrians to stop and look both ways BEFORE crossing the street, but I have to trust that they will. ....
When I'm out driving I expect pedestrians to cross the street ONLY at marked places, but I have to trust that they will.
Shall I go on?
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Probably not the case (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget those (Score:3)
with headphones, ear buds, air buds and all sorts of other things covering their ears. Not being able to hear what's going on around you is just IMHO silly.
Will listening the latest bang,bang,boom R&B thing save you from a collision? Not it won't and it may make you more liable to be hit by a vehicle.
Just you wait, the insurers will raise rates to cover themselves or eve better in their eyes, exclude anyone using a smartphone while walking or listening to tunes.
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Not being able to hear what's going on around you is just IMHO silly.
Given the general level of background noise in busy cities, coupled with the fact that most cars made in the past 2 decades are pretty damn quiet when not accelerating (where the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities occur), I highly doubt this makes a difference.
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Not being able to hear what's going on around you is just IMHO silly.
Given the general level of background noise in busy cities, coupled with the fact that most cars made in the past 2 decades are pretty damn quiet when not accelerating (where the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities occur), I highly doubt this makes a difference.
I don't doubt it at all. When I walk with noise-caceling headphones around town I really feel the difference in terms of knowing what's around me. I make a habit of being much more cautious about turning my head fully to look around and checking twice. I would never ride a bicycle with those things. I see others doing it, though.
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I would never ride a bicycle with those things.
As someone who cycles everywhere I can categorically tell you (yeah yeah appeal to authority fallacy, anecdote etc) that you don't hear cars until there's bugger all you can do about them unless:
a) they slow down because they can't pass you.
b) some raging impatient arsehole feels the need to demonstrate his arseholishness through the use of the horn.
Re:Don't forget those (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the biggest issue is that people assume when they have the right of way they don't need to pay attention. Unfortunately there are too many drivers who both don't understand who has the right of way, and others who don't pay attention to anything that isn't another car.
The safest thing to do is assume everyone else is an idiot, while I always try to exercise my right of way (otherwise it leads to more people assuming others will give way) I'm also watching everyone. e.g. I'm looking out for cars behind me while approaching the intersection.
As others have pointed out, cars are better and more isolating than ever. When cars were worse drivers needed to slow down more for corners, they didn't accelerate as quickly, etc. There is also more traffic than ever.
Not just driving and crossing the street... (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps more worrying is that people are getting distracted by the smartphones whilst voting, with disastrous consequences.
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Shit article, no context (Score:5, Insightful)
Article cites 6000 pedestrian deaths in 2016, and calls it a spike, but offers no context of how much of an increase that is.
Article cites pedestrian death rate has grown 4 times the overall traffic fatality rate, again without citing the base rate of either.
This could be a huge increase, or hardly any one at all. 100 people per year could have died for first 15 years of the 20 year period, and then spiked up to 6000 in 2016, or, it could have been 5900 per year for first 15 years and slightly increased to 6000 in 2016, both sets probably fit the data, and are enormously different.
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You're right the article is shit. But I can fill in some of the blanks, at least from here in Canada. Toronto last year saw a 34% increase in the number of pedestrians being hit. [thestar.com] There's fault and issues across the board, but the number of people being hit has increased. Whether it's drivers not signalling, cyclists being aggressive and thinking they're gods unto themselves and cutting off cars, or pedestrians not paying attention(because they've got shit jammed in their ears) and getting smeared by tru
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the small city I live in had 3 pedestrian hits last year. The pedestrian walked into traffic each time, and weren't paying attention.
If those numbers are true for a longer period of time the traffic in your city work completly different from any other town I've ever read about, but I guess it could easily happen for 3 cases, if you have really badly streets.
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Here in las vegas, We had so many people J-Walking and getting hit by vehicles because they would literally walk in front of oncoming traffic, they passed a law stating if youre not in the crosswalk with a walk signal, and you get hit by a car.. as long as the driver is sober it is the pedestrians fault. And to tell you the truth I've come close to running people over on purpose for it. People still walk in front of oncoming traffic. And then they want to yell at you like you shouldnt be driving on the road
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If those numbers are true for a longer period of time the traffic in your city work completly different from any other town I've ever read about, but I guess it could easily happen for 3 cases, if you have really badly streets.
It's usually the case of people in downtown getting hit because they're not using crosswalks. The city is mainly laid out that it pushes people to primary 4-lane roadways to travel across the city quickly. While streets with residential areas have more stop signs or RoW/4way yield intersections. With industrial areas always to the outside and new residential developments to the opposite direction but with plenty of road access(again 4lane) to speed traffic. They changed how they laid things out back oh
Not necessary (Score:2)
Growng? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait Why is the overall rate of traffic deaths _growing_?
Jesus Christ America, you suck!
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people in charge of speed limits and saftey standards wont be happy until your driving powerwheels to work. top speed 5mph! soo safe! wait, we still need a new nerf bumper design.
Speed limits in the US are way lower than in Europe (dispite having lower population density), but the US still has an order of magnitude more traffic accidents and fatalities. The low speed-limits might actually be making it worse, as people get bored and unfocused.
Spike in pedestrian deaths (Score:2)
Obligatory xkcd quote. (Score:5, Funny)
Nerd sniping [xkcd.com]. You don't ever need a smartphone!
And it's daily (Score:2)
Being cheap can save your life (Score:2)
How to from the real Darth Vader (Score:2)
And? (Score:2)
I don't see a problem. Natural selection doing its thing.
We should be happy the herd is being culled. When enough people die eventually the remainder will become smart enough to realize they might want to look around when crossing the street.
Totally. See the Werner Herzog Documentary. (Score:5, Informative)
I second that.
Just yesterday I nearly got run over on my bike by some SUV driver who was texting/dialing while driving.
Smartphones and texting while driving kill people. The problem is so obvious, that carriers had renowned filmmaker Werner Herzog do a freely available documentary on the problem a few years back to keep people from doing this ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Watch it and tell your friends to do that too. It's a must.
Stupid people are to be blamed (Score:2)
Smartphones or the earbuds plugged into them? (Score:2)
Evolution in action! (Score:2)
Thinning the heard! (Score:2)
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Police should start pulling over and ticketing drivers who are on their phones while driving.
That has been the case for a few years in the UK. However many ignored this and so recently the penalty when caught [theguardian.com] was doubled to 6 points; if you have 12 you are disqualified for some time. There has also been a recent media campaign "put your 'phone out of reach while driving". No one can claim that they don't know; I expect that many will still 'phone & drive.
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There's a lot of common sense here. Ask any mayor about crime, and he'll tell you he has only so many police officers; there just isn't the manpower. But ... but .. it would fund itself!
Now go read the conflict of interest [slashdot.org] thread from a story last week. There's a lot of common sense there too. And having the fines pay for the enforcement, would give an incentive for police t
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My favorite was the texting unicycle that smacked straight into the side of an ambulance.
And don't you wish you had your phone out so you could have filmed that to put on YouTube?
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That's why I prefer driving cars. If any crazies come too close, they're usually the ones that get killed.
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Politicians?
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this was a funny post, but couldnt submit because of too many caps cause slashdot sucks. so instead you get this post talking about how posting on slashdot sucks. Thanks guys!
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Dont walk in front of one of those either.
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maybe they should
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We couldn't get that lucky
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Don't ban smartphones or religion. Ban FaceTwit.
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Re:Google will fix it. (Score:2)
"Walk two blocks north, then turn left to the West and cross at the crosswalk. Ignore any red lights or Don't Walk symbols. Then continue for one block to arrive at destination."
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I have an opposing viewpoint... I walk for exercise most days on my lunch hour. I work in an ostensibly "walk friendly" community with a ton of antique shops on main street. I plan my route so I only cross one street that's bigger than a residential side street.
I get nearly killed at least once a month. It's almost always by someone turning left into a parking lot, so they're coming from my rear. The problem here isn't that people are on their phones. The problem is that drivers would mow down pedestrians a
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It's better than that. If x is the increase in the of pedestrians that are being killed because they are inattentive during the smartphone boom, and y is the likelihood of a smartphone-using pedestrian being so consumed that they don't notice a car coming at them, then x(1-y) pedestrians are using smartphones and would have been killed if they hadn't noticed the car. Also, x(1-y)/z, where z is the proportion of walkers staring at their phone at any given time, is the total number of all walkers that are in