Australia To Fight iPod Use By Pedestrians

Kilrah_il writes "In recent years the number of people killed on roads in New South Wales, Australia has dropped, but strangely enough, the number of pedestrians killed has risen. Some think it's because of the use of iPods and other music players making people not attentive to road dangers (the so-called 'iPod Zombie Trance'). Based on this (unproven) assumption, the Pedestrian Council has started a campaign in an effort to educate the people, but apparently it isn't enough. Now, some are pushing for the government to enact laws to help eradicate the problem. 'The government is quite happy to legislate that people can lose two demerit points for having music up too loud in their cars, but is apparently unconcerned that listening devices now appear to have become lethal pieces of entertainment,' [Harold Scruby of the Pedestrian Council of Australia] said. 'They should legislate appropriate penalties for people acting so carelessly towards their own welfare and that of others. ... Manufacturers should be made to [warn] consumers of the risks they run.'"

Comments

Re:What the....

[mjwx]

Someone without a sense of humour.

There, fixed that for you.

The whole penal colony joke became unfunny when we stopped giggling at penal because it sounds like penis.

Will. Not. Happen.

[damn_registrars]

Forget it. If you can't get people to realize that it is important to look at the road while driving, you'll never get people to realize that it is important to listen to their environment while walking. Thankfully if a non-listening pedestrian gets struck by a car out of their own stupidity it is nowhere near as great a magnitude of damage as some idiot driving their car into something they didn't see out of their own stupidity.