🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Honolulu is prohibiting pedestrians from looking at phones while in crosswalks. There have been many reports of huge increases in pedestrian injuries and deaths involving inattentive pedestrians.

So, what is your take? Apart from the ridiculously impossible enforcement issues, is this a sensible approach to public safety? Or is it namby pambies trying to protect idiots from themselves? I can see both sides

I am wondering because I see it as a microcosm of the other issues we were discussing. And not as visceral, so likely to not get nearly as heated.

@mayjay

We have an expression in software development that goes...you cannot design a fool-proof system because fools are too smart. Likewise, the government cannot legislate common sense into people's life any more than it can outlaw stupidity.

Maybe it is nature's way of "culling the heard" of individuals so stupid that literally risk life and limb to continue reading a twitter feed about issues so inane that a reasonable person would question the sanity of the poster...but I guess that is the way things are nowadays.

@mayjay

It's kind like the ban on texting while driving that's sweeping the main land.

1. How hard will it be to enforce, and will it be enforced.

2. Is it an infringement on some one's rights? They're not taking the phone away from said person. Just creating a zone where they don't want you to look at your phone.

3. Is it kind of like the Jaywalking law. A real law that is hardly ever enforced.

I would say sensible.

Yet I wouldn't be against signs being placed at cross walks saying don't look at your phone while crossing. A full fledge ad campaign with TV and radio commercials. Followed by cross walks and cell phone use classes being set up all over the country. Pamphlets should be mass produced and handed out to the masses. Protests and riots should be planned in front of every cell phone stand and store. A law suit should be filed against the cell phone makers.

Because if someone is too stupid to pay attention when crossing a road. We must save them from themselves so they can procreate.

@DoubleDD No, it is the fault of the people who manufactured the paint used in marking the lines.

All the protests would be sit-ins in the crosswalks. Oooops!

More seriously, it probably just gives the locality a means to make a public relations point to raise awareness. And if someone violates the law, causing a driver to swerve and inadvertently hurt someone else, it provides a target.

@DoubleDD

Texting while driving is a different case all together. When driving you are in control of a deadly piece of machinery that cans cause huge accidents and loss of life and requires a driver's license which requires you to follow and obey traffic rules that are in place to ensure the safety of all. When you are a pedestrian, you are risking primarily your own safety. Just my opinion.

If you walk in front of a car or piece of machinery, puts the fault on you.

@JayHawkFanToo

I was referring to how hard the law/rule would be to enforce. :upside_down:

@Crimsonorblue22

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?

@DoubleDD

I agree. It would be very difficult to enforce, particularly when the offending party and dozens of bystanders would immediately start recording the entire process and posting it to Facebook; no police officer would want to deal with that.

@JayHawkFanToo neither

Cameras on all buildings and you can check phones. Easy! Witnesses.

@JayHawkFanToo Require all phones to sound a siren when a retina is visible to the screen in a crosswalk! Or enforce it with a laser! Goon squads with long butterfly nets with which they seize phones! C'mon, there is opportunity for some creative inventioneering for you engineer types here!!