Slashdot Mirror
Emergency Room Visits From Distracted Walking Skyrocket (cbsnews.com)
schwit1 writes: An estimated ten percent of pedestrian injuries that land people in emergency rooms are due to distracted walking, a recent study found. That's thousands of people injured — sometimes killed. In San Diego, investigators believe Joshua Burwell may have been trying to take a picture of the sunset when he took a fatal fall some 40 feet off Sunset Cliffs. "A lot of people don't admit that they do it," said Dr. Claudette Lajam, an orthopedic surgeon. "It's getting worse as we have more and more features on these devices that we carry around with us that can distract us."
So you want a technological solution to solve a human-induced problem created by technology?
I guess using the 2 pounds of gray matter rattling around in one's skull is too obvious a solution.
Screw technology, let people maim or kill themselves. If they're too stupid to be aware of their surroundings, nature will take its course.
This is no different than our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago who didn't keep an eye out for dangers around them. They were removed from the gene pool.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sounds like a typically American plan.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Screw technology, let people maim or kill themselves.
That's fine when it's only them who get affected. Frequently it's not them we give a shit about, but the others that they injury either physically or psychologically in the process. A close friend of mine ran into someone who was distracted with his phone who stepped on to the cycling lane without looking. The guy started abusing my friend because his phone was knocked out of his hand and broken. But my friend didn't care because he was too busy being unconscious on the ground.
Similarly a friend of the family was a truck driver. Emphasis on the was part. He ran over and killed a young cyclist who was off with the fairies headphones blasting rock music and all and clearly didn't see a the red light. He can no longer drive. He's psychologically messed up even though the very short investigation concluded he was 0% at fault.
I'm all for Darwin awards but karma can sometimes be a slow and unfair bastard affecting innocent bystanders.