Crossing the Street and Chatting on a Cellphone Can Be Bad

Leave it to the Australians to sorta confirm what everyone has suspected: Talking on your cellphone can distract you while you're crossing the street. Here's an abstract of the study by Julie Hatfield and Susanne Murphy of the New South Wales Risk Management Research Center:

Research amongst drivers suggests that pedestrians using mobile telephones may behave riskily while crossing the road, and casual observation suggests concerning levels of pedestrian mobile-use. An observational field survey of 270 females and 276 males was conducted to compare the safety of crossing behaviours for pedestrians using, versus not using, a mobile phone. Amongst females, pedestrians who crossed while talking on a mobile phone crossed more slowly, and were less likely to look at traffic before starting to cross, to wait for traffic to stop, or to look at traffic while crossing, compared to matched controls. For males, pedestrians who crossed while talking on a mobile phone crossed more slowly at unsignalised crossings. These effects suggest that talking on a mobile phone is associated with cognitive distraction that may undermine pedestrian safety. Messages explicitly suggesting techniques for avoiding mobile-use while road crossing may benefit pedestrian safety.

Imagine the signage the Department of Transportation could develop to tell pedestrians to pay more attention while crossing - if only there were signs to remind drivers not to do all the horrible things they do! Anyway, given all the broken curbs, potholes, and uneven sidewalks - not to mention dog poo - it's not a bad idea to be more alert while walking.

The NY Times also mentions another potentially bad cell phone distraction: Text-messaging while crossing the street. But in good cellphone news, Danish scientists find that cellphones don't pose a bigger cancer risk than, say, microwaves or FM radios.

Photograph of runner in NYC Marathon talking on cellphone by lornagrl on Flickr

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on December 6, 2006 4:22 PM

Comments [rss]

"The Walker"

The whole cellphone thing might be the worst development to hit New York in the last six years. People talking on their cellphones don't just clog up intersections, they tend to weave very slowly down the sidewalks and block pedestrian traffic there to. Throw in the IPOD wearers and the tourist traffic, and it becomes physically painful to walk in parts of Manhattan if you happen to have a long stride.

Remember when New Yorkers had a reputation for walking fast?

"The Driver"

Yeah that's right, Keep walking, and talking on your cell . Just a little further......, *POW* !!!! Another stupid pedest. goes flying through the air . I luv running over those dummies .

Ben Dover

What kind of a MORON needs a study to confirm the obvious?.

And Gothamist shouldn't bother to warn these cell-phone-chatting-assholes about such dangers either; it affects NATURAL SELECTION because now they might NOT be hit by a vehicle and survive to procreate.

Bad move Gothy.

Teddy N.

I've seen this myself many times, sometimes from my car, sometimes while walking next to someone, usually a woman. I often have to wait, even when the light is green for my car. I hate to honk and bring them out of their world, but what else can I do. Sometimes they give me that "how dare I honk" look on their faces.

Other times I'm walking next to someone on their cellphone (usually a woman, no offense to women reading this), I stop for the red light and she keeps walking. Another time, a man fell on the broken sidewalk as he was talking about how bad his day was at his job.

You're also right about the dog poo. One time, I was standing on the sidewalk near dog poo and watched two women on their cellphone step right into it. Hopefully, they weren't on their way to a first date.:)

Gwinny

I've had several close calls on my bike when pedestrians have walked out in front of me without looking as they chat away obliviously on their cell phones, so the results of this study don't surprise me at all. I've also seen them do this with cars, by the way.

Then again, pedestrians who aren't on their cells do this too, so I guess what I'm saying is that pedestrians need to pay more attention when walking out into the street.

Paul

Damnable cell phones are everywhere !!

krunkymunky

responding to comment #1: probably sometime before he fixes the leaky subway system, and definitely before he makes the streets substantially safer for bicyclists. hopefully he'll make effective improvements to the public education system first, but at least the freedom tower is almost finished with its pre-construction planning. maybe i shouldn't be so harsh on his mayorship ... he did clean up times square. oh wait, that was rudy. well, at least the yankees and mets are both getting new stadiums!

njm

no joke, i've watched people continue walking into crosswalks, into traffic, whlie on phones. and then they are startles out of their trance when a car almost hits them and honks. chaos ensues, threats yelled out, and of course fisticuffs flail wontonly.