Laws Against Distracted Walking

540 Words2 Pages

Have you ever been walking and gotten a message? If so, that one text could have killed you. Distracted walking has become a serious and dangerous problem in the United States. Some people think the solution is to make it illegal. Others think that it's just common sense to pay attention to your surroundings. Distracted walking is looking at a mobile device or listening to music while walking. Some cities are solving this problem by coming up with solutions. Honolulu Hawaii was the first city to pass a law against distracted walking. This shows that we don't need a law for distracted walking. No there should not be a law against distracted walking because it's not always just distracted walking that creates car wrecks. A report from the office of Ontario’s Chief Coroner found that seven out of 95 pedestrians killed in 2010 were distracted by a cell phone or MP3 player. That’s about 7%. The same study found that eight out of 95 pedestrian fatalities involved “encumbrance” by an activity such as walking a dog or pushing a cart. That’s roughly 8%, though there are no proposals to ban crossing the street with your dog. This piece of evidence shows that distracted walking is not always just looking at …show more content…

Jaywalking is already against the law, so if someone crosses an active roadway illegally, regardless of whether they’re on their phone, there’s an existing fine to cover that. A pedestrian obeying the walk signal has the right-of-way, and if they get struck by a car, the driver is in the wrong. This shows that there already are ways to prevent this issue. According to the national safety council people tend to understand that they are in danger of being hit and or injured by a car if they are walking while looking at there phone, they would rather look at their phone. This piece of evidence shows that people know that they are in danger, they just don't do anything about

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