We’ve all seem people walking while staring down at their phones, even resulting in some hilarious videos. Even one that went viral a while back when a surveillance camera captured footage a woman in a shopping mall falling into a fountain while staring at the device in her hand.
Now a city in Germany thinks it may have found a solution, or at least a partial one. The town of Augsburg is embedding traffic lights in its sidewalks in hopes that pedestrians may notice while looking down and then not walk out into traffic.
This comes on the heels of a report that showed that 17 percent of pedestrians use their smartphone while in road traffic. To nobody’s surprise, it’s the younger generation that is affected by this phenomena the most. The study also reveals that Amsterdam has the lowest statistics, while Stockholm the highest.
The reports points out that “Across all cities and age groups, just under 8 percent of pedestrians were seen texting while crossing the street. A further 2.6 percent made calls, and around 1.4percent did both at the same time. Around 5 percent wore earplugs or headphones without speaking, so were probably listening to music. As expected, younger pedestrians tended to use their smartphone more frequently than older ones, with use being most intensive in the 25-to-35 age group at 22 percent. Gender-specific differences were apparent: While texting was most common among female pedestrians, men listened to music much more”.
Security firm Sophos points out that “Augsburg’s new pedestrian lights — which the city’s just trialing, at this point — eight LEDs begin to flash red when a tram approaches”.
We’ll see how this works. If it’s effective then we may see it implemented elsewhere, both in Europe and perhaps in the US.