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Chicago Tribune reported last week that Rep. Ken Dunkin of the Illinois General Assembly has introduced a bill to ban text messaging while walking down or across the street. If you want to look it up, it's
HB4520. Under the proposed law, residents would be charged with a misdemeanor and fined $25 if caught using a cell phone or wireless text device while "traversing streets".
How serious is it? The chief of emergency medicine at Northwestern says that a large number of the injured would have avoided injury if they had not been walking and texting. And, that the locations of these accidents are crowded places where people are moving; Lake Shore path and Michigan Ave. being ground zero for collisions.
Meanwhile, in London, things have gotten so dangerous for text happy citizens that the city has started padding the lamp posts because people were crashing into them while texting; there were 68,000 accidents last year ranging from minor bruises to fractured skulls. Here's the
story from the Evening Standard.
Is it a problem here? Could we be next?
1 comment:
FLUNKIN DUNKIN! After reading the article I'm alarmed that a State Representative who's district is facing so many serious problems is spending his time introducing such unnecessary legisltaion. It's not laughable, it's just plain irresponsible. Ken Dunkin should be more concerned with the children being killed on his streets and the state's buget crisis rather than the texting habbits of Chicago's walkers. What's he going to take on next, J walking?!
-Dan Balanoff
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