
Smartphones Are Killing Americans, but Nobody’s Counting - kafkaesq
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-17/smartphones-are-killing-americans-but-nobody-s-counting
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pwg
From the article: "Finally, the increase in fatalities has been largely among
bicyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians--all of whom are easier to miss
from the driver's seat than, say, a 4,000-pound SUV."

It is also not at all helpful, in at least the instance of pedestrians, that
far too many of them have forgotten (or choose to ignore) what they should
have been told as a child: "look both ways before crossing the street" and
"don't cross when it is not safe to do so".

I regularly see pedestrians who approach a crosswalk across a four-lane
arterial road with heavy traffic moving 35-45mph in both directions who _do
not look_ for oncoming vehicles, _do not_ slow down, and _just barrel on
across_ , expecting that the traffic will always stop (or even can stop, the
laws of physics don't get overruled or revoked simply because the pedestrian
has the right of way).

It is almost as if some of these pedestrians actively want to become one of
those increased fatalities.

