Chinese City Gets 'Smartphone Zombie' Walkway (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A city in northern China has introduced a special pedestrian lane on one of its roads, exclusively for slow-walking smartphone users, it's reported. According to the Shaanxi Online News, the pavement along the Yanta Road in Xi'an has now got itself a special lane for "phubbers" -- people who stare at their phones and ignore everything else around them. The lane is painted red, green and blue, and is 80cm wide and 100m long. Pictures of smartphones along the route distinguish it from an ordinary pedestrian lane. Shaanxi Online says that a large shopping mall, which looks onto the street, had been pushing to have the lane for a month. It says that cars often come onto the pavement, which is a busy channel for pedestrians who might not be paying attention to their surroundings. News website The Paper interviewed locals, who welcomed the introduction of the lane. Wei Xiaowei said it was the first time he had seen such a thing and said he thought it was "pretty good." "Everybody walking along here thinks that it's very safe; at the side of the road, there are cars, and the vehicles also come onto here, and sometimes only just avoid you."

Comments

Re:I give it 30 seconds

[AmiMoJo]

Depends where it is... Electric scooters and rental bikes are everywhere in Fuzhou. I saw a guy riding one, with a woman on the back, and phone in hand. His horn must have been broken because he was using a horn app on his phone to shoo people out of his way as he rode through a shopping centre.

In Guangzhou they are rare. It's all cars and the pedestrian areas are safe except for phone zombies.