It is now illegal in Fort Lee, New Jersey to text while waking along public sidewalks. This is now classified as “jaywalking,” and carries an $85 fine.
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From last year: Philadelphia announces plans to give “warning” tickets to people who text while walking
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Couldn’t get the death penalty by the lousy liberal legislature, huh?
What’s next… walking and chewing gum at the same time?
From the article:
Fort Lee Police Chief Thomas Ripoli…said there had been three fatal pedestrian accidents in Fort Lee this year and that he hopes the new policy will promote public safety.
I’m sure the gov’t is open to other suggestions that will stop people from endangering themselves and others this way. Any practical suggestions other than a fine?
How about, instead of requiring government action, we allow the public to self-help? Specifically, whenever a citizen sees someone doing the zombie-walk that is texting while walking, where the person is so focused on their personal electronica that they fail to notice people, objects, and situations around them, it is legal to trip them, without warning of any kind.
Now, with this plan, any citizen can help to solve the problem AND gets to observe humorous pratfalls as the real-world-ignoring text-while-walkers learn to maintain wariness about their surroundings. I’m sure that civic-minded teenagers will throw themselves into a public-service opportunity like this.
The problem with this plan, James, would be the disruption caused by half the people on the sidewalk stopping short and pulling out their cell phones so they can record the guy tripping and upload it to YouTube.
Though it’s not strictly relevant, we should probably watch this:
Practical suggestions? Sure, here’s one: require, by law, that cell phone towers drop signal to any phone which is traveling faster than ~5mph with respect to the tower. Since the 4G signal is theoretically standardized, allow the telcos to put low-power 4G transmitters in buses, train cares, and airplanes, which would then be able to bypass the 5mph limit so that passengers would be OK. Suddenly, driving while talking or texting would be actually impossible — and since cell phones are responsible for more than a quarter of car accidents now, that would be an unquestionably Good Thing.
Good suggestions. What about passengers in cars. Should they be allowed to use a cellphone? How about in an emergency situation, or to call the police to see if the person pulling you over is really a cop: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/justice/mississippi-highway-shooting/ ?
Actually, if a police car turns on its siren, and you don’t feel safe pulling over where you are, you can keep driving until you find a place where you do feel safe, like a well-lit area. If they’re real cops, they’ll throw up a roadblock, and you’ll know that way as well.
(Captcha Code: DN3D. Ahhhh … much better …)
@Pinny:
So are you seriously arguing that the ability of passengers in private cars to make phone calls while the car is still moving should trump safety considerations? If those folks want to make calls, let them wait until the trip is over, or get the driver to park. Or take public transportation. We already have laws (which are enforced) which take a similar “we can’t tell if it was the driver or the passenger, so it’s illegal for any of them” stance: it’s illegal to have an open bottle of alcohol in a moving car in my area. That hasn’t been struck down as unconstitutional, and alcohol appears to be less dangerous than cell phone usage.
Same goes for emergencies: under what circumstances would there be an emergency where a driver would want to keep moving while calling? Even in the Mississippi shootings you reference, you’ll notice the authorities don’t say “you shouldn’t pull over” — and once you’re pulled over, the transmission would return.
If the poll is to reflect the actual situation, it needs to be changed. It’s texting while jaywalking that’s getting fined. Which makes sense to me. Not only are you cutting across traffic in an unsafe way, but you’ve got your attention on your phone while you’re at it.
My understanding of the law is that it deals with texting while waking, and texting while walking is treated as jaywalking.
Seems to me that texting while actually jaywalking is likely to carry its own, much more serious punishment.
An $85 fine sounds a little bit steep to me, but I agree with this law in principle. Some people obviously cannot perceive how much danger they put themselves into when they are texting and walking, and hitting them with a modest fine seems to me like a reasonable way to give them a reminder that they won’t quickly forget.
$85 isn’t really that steep compared to what they’ll charge you for running a stop sign.
And I have a feeling that despite the law, warnings will be issued first.
Another article says 117 tickets issued so far.
If the three fatalities in Fort Lee were the texters, then the problem, if any exists, seems to be self-correcting. My guess is that better than 99.999% of texting (both while walking and driving) happens without incident, thus instilling in the texters mind the feeling that it is a benign activity (or at least that it’s the other guy who makes mistakes, “I can multitask just fine.”). Instead of punishing everyone (including passengers) hit them in the pocketbook. You get hit by a car while texting, you (or your heirs) forfeit any legal recourse. Better yet, let the driver of the car sue you (or your heirs) for mental anguish. If you cause an accident or injury to others, make texting an aggravating factor that triples any fines or awards to the injured party. Granted, this won’t prevent many accidents, but I doubt handing out jaywalking tickets will prevent many people from texting while walking, either. And no, I am not a lawyer.
“If the three fatalities in Fort Lee were the texters….”
Given that none of the news coverage has said so, I think we can be reasonably certain that texting did not figure into those deaths. I also suspect that it’s no coincidence that this measure was passed after a couple of years of recession and budget cuts.
I work in south-west Chelsea (NYC), and the pedestrians with 110% of their attention focused on their stupid phones are a hazard, plain and simple. C’mon, folks — if you absolutely have to text/browse/Google, then pull over to the side, stop, and have at it. If you’re on the move, you have a responsibility to not walk into other people, which means at least 33% of your attention is on where the frack you are going.
-jp
I’m reminded of the first time I saw Emo Phillips. “While in Boston, I got a really nice Walkman. I took it off a dead jogger.”
Nothing has changed in an awful lot of years.
When a city starting cracking down on jaywalkers, my first thought is always that they must have solved all the real crimes already.