NEW HAZARD ON OUR STREETS
Hanes: Beware the walking texters
Walk down the streets of Montreal these days and you may find yourself bobbing and weaving to avoid hazards suddenly in your path. Not orange cones or potholes or puddles, but rather other pedestrians who aren’t paying attention to where they’re going. You can be sure they’re not looking at the falling leaves or admiring public art or are absorbed in conversation with friends. For the most part they’re staring at their smartphones. A sign of the times, this distracted pedestrian phenomenon is prevalent downtown, near the university campuses and outside high schools where there tend to be a lot of young people. But I’m not pointing fingers at the generation that has come of age with smartphones alone; adults of all ages seem increasingly lost in the virtual world as they are navigating the real one. I won’t say I never take out mine to check on texts or emails while walking, but for the most part, I tend to be pushing a stroller or holding a small child’s hand on Montreal sidewalks. This, of course, makes using a smartphone difficult, but it does offer an opportunity to notice passersby almost mowing down my pint-sized 3-year-old, tripping over the buggy I’m pushing or meandering into our path as we walk. Since I’ve started watching out for preoccupied pedestrians, there have been moments when there seem to be more people on the sidewalk texting (or emailing, or checking Facebook, or swiping through Tinder or whatever it is they’re doing) than there are people paying attention. Mostly it’s annoying. But there is growing concern among authorities and policy-makers that this trend poses a serious public health risk. By now the dangers of driving and texting ought to be wellknown and obvious — not to mention illegal. Stricter laws and tougher sanctions came into effect last summer when Quebec’s highway traffic act was updated. Too many people have died or been gravely injured in accidents caused by distracted driving. But distracted walking is now attracting scrutiny in its own right. Exo, the agency that runs the commuter trains in the Montreal region, recently made distraction part of its safety campaign. A public service announcement on its Facebook page warned passengers to keep their heads up around trains and buses — and wait until they are safely on board before they whip out their smartphones. A blooper reel of security cam footage shows pedestrians bumping into lampposts, falling into fountains, slamming into glass doors and tumbling down stairs, courtesy of the Western Cape government in South Africa. It’s an amusing way to grab an addled public’s attention, but it’s no laughing matter. “We observe dangerous behaviour on a daily basis in bus terminals and on our train platforms,” said Louis-André Bertrand, a spokesperson for Exo. Tragically, the Montreal police ruled that the death of a 13-yearold boy, killed at the Bois-Franc commuter train station in September, was “due to inattention.” The teen was wearing earphones and looking at a screen as a train rolled into the station, police representatives later told media. Besides trains or métros, getting hit by a car is a major threat. Although specific statistics are hard to come by, Reader’s Digest reported 11,000 deaths from texting and walking over a decade. The National Safety Council in the U.S. pointed to smartphone use as a possible factor driving a 46-per-cent increase in pedestrian deaths. It also noted a demographic shift in the victims of pedestrian fatalities: in the past, younger children between the ages of five and nine were most at risk; now it’s teens. In Quebec, too, pedestrian deaths and death because of distraction are both on the rise, prompting concern from lawmakers. When a spate of four accidents in four days put the pedestrian death toll on par with the murder rate so far in 2018 back in September, Montreal’s public security committee held a special hearing. In a rapidly aging Quebec, seniors crossing intersections seem particularly vulnerable to fatal accidents, making smartphone use an unlikely culprit here. Still, cities around the world are taking aim at the distracted walking phenomenon with signs warning people to pay attention or fines for crossing the street with eyes glued to a screen. This isn’t to blame the victims. It’s far more reckless and can cause far more harm to drive while texting. But the pitfalls of doing so as a pedestrian also need addressing. Our digital addiction is reaching such epidemic proportions, it should be cause for alarm. A recent study from the U.S. National Library of Medicine found that 259 people have died taking selfies between 2011 and 2017. Now it seems we can’t even look both ways before we cross the street — something most of us were taught in preschool. Not only is staring at a phone all the time bad for us (and our kids and our relationships), but there’s growing evidence that observing the natural environment is actually good for us. So heads up. Watch where you’re going. And maybe take some time to check out your surroundings once in a while.