Injuries mount for distracted pedestrians using cellphones

[malaise]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/06/19/high-tech-pain-mounting.html
<snip>
Dr. Colin Kaide suspects that many cellphone-related stumbles are kept a painful little secret.

“A lot of people aren’t going to admit when they were texting and walked face-first into a wall," said Kaide, who works in the emergency department at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.

“It’s not a glorious way to go down.”

However, more of us are pulling these self-destructive stunts and owning up to them, according to a new study that shows an estimated 1,506 cellphone-related injuries in 2010 that were severe enough to send people to the hospital.

That’s nearly triple the number reported in 2004, according to a new study that used a national database. And the injury toll likely is much greater, said Jack Nasar, the lead researcher and a professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State.

Most of the injured walkers were 16 to 25 years old, according to the study, which appears in the August issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention.

[RKP5637]

1. Around here they often have shopping carts plowing through the

grocery stores while talking on their phones. They are a hazard and sometimes crash into shoppers! Seriously!

[malaise]

3. They disgust me

When you're stupid enough to be texting on a pedestrian crossing, you are an irresponsible nuisance to humanity

[RKP5637]

4. Had that happen at Best Buy the other day. We were driving into the lot

and some guy was just standing on the edge of the road, no crosswalk ... and suddenly answered his phone and walked right into traffic in front of us. The stupidity sometimes is just amazing - no brains engaged. ... also been almost sideswiped a couple of times ... someone yakking on their phone or attempting to text and their car drifted into my lane. Some days I think increasing technology and increasing stupidity go hand-in-hand.

[KharmaTrain]

2. Anti Social Social Networking...

...I've known of people not just walking into walls but falling down steps and into oncoming traffic with their heads buried in their hemedroid. Or sitting with a group of people (age doesn't seem to matter) who are all absorbed with their phones...no one speaks to one another. While you can tell people about dangers and hope they have common sense you still can't stop them if they have to update their status or check that score one more time.

Still...1,506 injuries with several hundred million phones out there, I'd say we're not quite at a epidemic levels yet.

[malaise]

5. I nearly hit one such moron

who was texting in the middle of a carpark with people moving in and out. She was totally oblivious and was shocked when I asked her if she ever saw a car on a ward in a hospital

[KharmaTrain]

6. Just Wait For Google Glasses...

...we'll have zombies self absorbed with whatever game or tweet is showing up on their glasses while giving the rest of us a glazed look.



The other night we were out for dinner...nice restaurant and all of a sudden a cheer goes up...a bunch of people checking their phones found out the Blackhawks had just scored. No TV on (a reason we went...to get away from the non-stop hockey around here) but everyone's got a phone...

[malaise]

7. LOL

You should have heard our neighborhood last night with the basketball

[Marrah_G]

8. I have two favorite videos of this

The woman in the mall who was texting and fell into the fountain and the guy who was texting,started walking into an alley and just about walked right into a BEAR!

[malaise]

10. I remember the woman falling into the fountain

[hobbit709]

9. We don't have sabertooths anymore to weed out the slow and dumb.

so we have to invent new ways.

[malaise]

11. Darwin rules

[texanwitch]

12. Yep.

I have a smart phone but there is a time and place for everything.