CALL OF THE RILED
Officials are very worried about pedestrians glued to their phones while crossing city streets
When Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart swerved on his bike to avoid hitting a smartphone-obsessed pedestrian, he got an F-bomb for his trouble.
The outcome could have been much worse. About 55 pedestrians are killed in B.C. each year.
Stewart immediately took to social media, issuing an apology and a warning: “Thank goodness it was a bike, as a car would have killed you.”
The woman was looking at her smartphone unaware of his presence, walked into the street from between two parked cars and was startled as Stewart zipped around her.
“She gave me an F-bomb and she’s not the only one to get angry,” he said. “I’ve had a few pedestrians walk in front of my bicycle and my car. It’s starting to become so commonplace, people are risking their lives.”
Country 107.1 morning host Chris Coburn is an avid cyclist and Cops for Cancer rider who dodges distracted pedestrians on a daily basis.
“I yell heads up faster and louder than any known cyclist,” he said. “I’ve had too many close calls to count. People are zombies.”
Everyone seems to have a story of being struck on a sidewalk by a cellphone walker, so engrossed in their electronics that they lose track of the real world.
“I don’t think there’s an officer out there who hasn’t been to a collision in which the pedestrian was on a phone or seen people stepping into the road and almost getting hit because they are on their phone,” said RCMP Staff Sgt. Lorne Lecker.
There are strict laws with substantial fines against distracted driving and even laws that apply to cyclists, but the only laws that apply to pedestrians are for jaywalking
“It’s not illegal to use a phone while walking across the street, it’s just foolish and we can’t enforce common sense,” he said. “Look up, it might save your life.”
A number of cities have already taken action to protect distracted walkers. Seoul has installed street signs reminding people to look up before entering the roadway, while Chongqing, China, has designated separate walking paths for cellphone users and non-users.
The City of Toronto asked the Government of Ontario to change the Highway Traffic Act to ban pedestrians from texting on the road, but were turned down.
Like Ontario, cities in B.C. have the ability to regulate pedestrians through bylaws, according to a spokesperson for the Solicitor-General.
Former Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs — recently ascended to chief of staff for Premier John Horgan — had expressed a desire to see distracted walking regulated. However, Vancouver has no plans to pursue a bylaw or signage targeted at distracted walkers, according to city spokesman Jag Sandhu.
Such a move would be popular in some quarters. An Insights West poll last year found that 66 per cent of Canadians support a ban on texting while walking.
The local advocacy group HUB Cycling wants to avoid playing the blame game in the quest for safer streets.
“We need to do everything we can to protect people walking and a law criminalizing texting and walking will not improve safety,” said acting executive director Laura Jane. “We need to make good design decisions to ensure there is good separation between people walking, cycling and driving. and reducing speed limits. Blaming walkers distracts from the fact that cars are the biggest danger on our streets.”
Crash, crime and insurance statistics don’t easily capture the results of distracted walking, if they exist.
Pedestrian deaths in B.C. have been stable at around 55 fatalities annually for most of the past decade, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. So, nothing to see here? Not so fast. The number of drivers and passengers killed in motor-vehicle accidents have dropped more than 40 per cent over that same period. Cyclist deaths are down, too, even as the number of cyclists grow.
Whether our increasing obsession with smartphones is contributing to stubbornly high pedestrian death rates isn’t directly known.
“We do know that pedestrians are hit by drivers and you can look around and see things pedestrians are doing that put them at risk, such as talking or texting,” said Aileen Shibata, ICBC road safety manager.
ICBC’s public-safety messaging is aimed as much at pedestrians as it is at drivers.
“We are really trying to communicate to pedestrians and drivers that they have a shared responsibility to keep pedestrians safe,” she said.
Police will be enforcing pedestrian behaviour during October, when fatalities tend to spike each year, she said. The message is simple: You need to be vigilant, keep your head up and avoid being distracted. Remove your headphones and leave your phone alone while crossing the road.