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Driver Killed a Pedestrian in Japan While Playing Pokemon Go (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader writes: One woman was killed and another injured. In what police are calling Japan's first death linked to Pokemon Go, a driver playing the smartphone game hit two pedestrians on Tuesday night, officials said. The collision broke the neck of one woman, killing her, and left another woman with a broken hip, the Wall Street Journal reports. Police in Tokushima, on the western Japanese island of Shikoku, told the Wall Street Journal the women were crossing the street when the car struck them. The man driving the car did not see them because was playing Pokemon Go.
Achievement level unlocked!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Blame the subclass of humanity that finds it acceptable to operate their devices while driving.
The headline should really be "Unsafe driver kills pedestrian". If it wasn't Pokemon Go, it would have been texting or some other action that caused this muppet to kill someone.
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Stop contradicting yourself!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Are people's lives so bloody empty that they need to play with a phone all the time? What the hell is wrong with them?
It's not about empty lives, it's about addictive games. Games even ones as insipidly simple as PoGo can tap into your Skinner box tendancies. It's less about the rest of your life being fulfilling than about an individual having self control.
Just another second banana
Or they could be smart and lock out users when they're moving so fast they're obviously not on foot. I feel bad for Nintendo, their stock already fell when people realized they didn't make the game, but they're going to be facing lawsuits as the distributor. Pokemon Go is not going to work out well for them at all.
They added that feature a while back. You have to tap a button saying that you're a passenger and not the driver if the app detects that you're moving faster than walking speed. There's also a bunch of warnings that the game rotates through when you start it up including, "Don't drive while playing Pokemon Go", "Don't trespass while playing Pokemon Go", "Don't go into dangerous areas while playing Pokemon Go", etc.
Press here to buy two hours of legal consultation after killing someone playing this game.
How is it Darwinism? It was innocent pedestrians that were killed/injured.
Darwinism would be if the driver died.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If I proposed an idea that's wrong more than half the time, the last thing I'd expect anyone to call me, is "smart." That simply isn't the right word for this idea.
Fast movement doesn't imply driving. I'll grant that if you can determine the vehicle is a bicycle or motorcycle, chances are over 50% that the driver is playing. (Motorcycle passengers are unlikely to have free hands.) But if it's basically any other type of vehicle (or if no vehicle is involved at all), you're throwing babies out more often than you're throwing out bathwater! Why would you use a word like "smart" for this?!?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
You can also get it to pop up merely by switching to something else so Pokemon Go is in the background, continue walking, and then switch back to the game so that when it updates your new position it decides you've moved from the old position instantly. The great thing is that once you've dismissed the popup once, I don't think it comes up again in the same session, so if it triggers while walking to your car (since it can easily trigger when you leave a building and the GPS accuracy is just bad so you're bouncing all over the place) it won't trigger while you're driving.
Other people say "don't blame the game, blame the driver" but I disagree. Niantic has created a game where playing it while moving quickly is an advantage. You can hit more "pokestops" faster, collect more items, and go through more potential Pokemon spawns by playing in a car. Sure, you can argue that's fine if you're a passenger, but what they should have done is make it so that moving "quickly" like that DOESN'T give you an advantage. Make it so that the best way to play is by walking, not driving.
But Ingress has the same problem, so I'm not surprised Pokemon Go does too. It's even worse in Ingress - the best way to collect what's basically "fuel" that powers every action you take is by driving, since it tends to collect along roads for some reason, and you can still hit portals to get items as long as you don't break 35 MPH.
Well, it does throw up messages if you're moving too fast, but if you cut it off completely, they passengers couldn't play, which wouldn't be nice, especially if you have a car load of kids playing. It keeps them busy, you know.
But really there are ALREADY laws on the books against DISTRACTED DRIVING.....how is this any different?
Those laws are quite broad enough..and if you get caught doing so, then they should rip your license up in front of you, and point you towards the nearest tricycle shop, or bus pass station.
But for heaven's sakes, we don't need more laws, etc.
And no, Nintento should not be liable for individual stupidity.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I disagree entirely. Ingress is much BETTER than Pokemon Go in this respect. In Ingress, things don't move or disappear. If you see something on your scanner, you can pull off the road, park, deal with it, etc. If you miss it you can turn around and drive back and it will still be there. Pokemon, on the other hand, appear and disappear in completely random places with no predictability. This leads to much more sudden actions by the player and pressure to respond. This makes it much MORE dangerous, IMHO.
Come play Moral Decay!