Ticketing smartphone zombies makes sense
If a small southern California city’s fight against zombie smartphone users is interpreted as a war on pedestrians, sign me up as a recruit.
Montclair, just west of Los Angeles, has the right idea with its decision to begin ticketing folks who are crossing the street while on the phone. The new law says that unless you are making a 911 call, don’t text, talk or listen to anything that requires two earbuds while in a roadway.
The city manager got the idea from a similar ordinance that Honolulu put into effect last October. The Hawaiian municipal law was the first of its kind in a major U.S. city.
Opponents contend that “distracted walking” laws, like those that result in fines in Honolulu and Montclair, are nothing more than “the creeping criminalization” of pedestrians. In the words of a Treehugger post, this is another city joining the “victim-blaming bandwagon.”
The critics are right— to a point. Pedestrians on phones don’t pose a danger to people in cars; it’s the other way around. So my enthusiasm for this ordinance isn’t designed to let distracted drivers off the hook nor excuse those who fail to yield the right of way to walkers.
But does any of that make it OK for pedestrians to go out of their way to behave foolishly? Why put yourself in harm’s way as a result of becoming so bewitched by your phone that you are absolutely oblivious to everything around you?
As I rolled up yesterday to the parking lot entrance of an SMU-area strip mall, a young man approached on the sidewalk with his smartphone less than three inches from his face. This digitally obsessed individual neither paused even a moment nor wavered from his device as he stepped off the curb and into the driveway right in front of my car. Without ever looking up, much less noticing the nose of my vehicle, he slowly zombie-walked across the opening and up into the adjacent sidewalk.
I’m good to yield rightofto walkers, but this guy’s level of inattention was shocking. It appeared I could have hit him and still not deterred his reading.
(Even if he had no fear of cars, wasn’t he at least a bit worried about tripping over one of the countless orange, green and yellow rental bikes strewn all over town?)
It’s accidents-waitinglike this young man that Monclair is trying to protect with its new law. Between now and Aug. 1, city police are working to educate smartphone offenders. Beginning later this year, $100 fines will be issued.
Interestingly, Montclair high
it school was students— grew up on smartphones—who told city officials they thought the ban was a good idea. Their support wasn’t designed to make the streets more convenient for drivers but rather to protect their peers.
“The youth admit that they are distracted by their cellphones,” City Manager Edward Starr said. “This has turned out to be a reminder for them that their lives are on the line.”
Kara Macek, a spokeswoman with the Governors Highway Safety Association in California, told the Los Angeles Times: “Everyone’s using them, we’ve got them glued to our hands,” but because distracted pedestrian laws are so new, the “jury’s still out as to whether it’s actually going to make a difference.”
Sure you can scoff at Montclair’s efforts as another instance of California— the mother of all nanny states—interfering with personal choices. But how about if we get smart enough that government gets out of our way.