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Smartphones May Be To Blame For Unprecedented Spike In Pedestrian Deaths, Says Report (cnn.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the don't-text-and-drive dept.

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.

11 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Darwin at work by hoover · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let Darwin do his work... ;-)

    --
    Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
    1. Re: Darwin at work by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re: Darwin at work by thegarbz · · 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.

    3. Re: Darwin at work by jabuzz · · 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.

    4. Re: Darwin at work by tsqr · · Score: 5, Funny

      guardian angle laws

      That's acute way of looking at the problem.

    5. Re: Darwin at work by tsqr · · 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.

  2. Probably not the case by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 5, Funny

    No one died on their smartphones on my street today. Therefore this trend doesn't exist. It is in fact a conspiracy pushed by the chicken little pedestrian lobby in trying to take away my God given right to have a smartphone and be reckless with it.

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
  3. Not just driving and crossing the street... by sidetrack · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps more worrying is that people are getting distracted by the smartphones whilst voting, with disastrous consequences.

  4. Shit article, no context by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  5. Obligatory xkcd quote. by ctrl-alt-canc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nerd sniping. You don't ever need a smartphone!

  6. Totally. See the Werner Herzog Documentary. by Qbertino · · Score: 4, 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?...

    Watch it and tell your friends to do that too. It's a must.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca