Texting, music put distracted pedestrians at risk
11:04AM EST December 13. 2012 - Many pedestrians crossing busy streets are also busy doing something else — usually listening to music, texting or talking on a phone — and those distracted walkers are often failing to look both ways for traffic or follow other safety rules, a new study confirms.

The study, conducted in Seattle this past summer, may be the largest yet to look at real-world pedestrians in our age of distraction: It found that more than 26% of the 1,000-plus walkers were using electronic devices as they navigated intersections where pedestrians had been hit in the past.

And the distraction showed: Texters were nearly four times less likely than other pedestrians to follow all safety rules, including looking both ways, staying in the crosswalk and obeying signals; and both texters and talkers took extra time to cross the street. Music-listeners walked faster, but often failed to look for cars, say researchers from the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, who reported findings Wednesday in the journal Injury Prevention.

The findings could help explain why pedestrian deaths are increasing nationwide, even as other traffic-related deaths hit historic lows, as reported by the federal government this week.

Walkers who text, just like drivers who text, may be most at risk, says researcher Beth Ebel: "Texting is pulling you out of where you are and putting your mind somewhere else… You are on autopilot and that puts you on risk."

The findings are generally in line with those from other researchers, including some who test pedestrian behavior in lab simulations.

"We are finding very clearly that it's dangerous to be distracted when you cross the street," says David Schwebel, a professor of psychology who runs a pedestrian behavior lab at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

In some of his experiments, people listening to music are more likely to be hit by virtual cars than those who are texting. He speculates that hearing cars may be at least as important as seeing them. But he says "we've looked at talking on the phone, browsing the Internet, listening to music, talking to someone next to you… all of those things increase the risk for pedestrian injury."

Unpublished data from emergency room records shows injuries among pedestrians using cellphones increased steadily from 2005 to 2010, says Jack Nasar, a researcher at Ohio State University.

Some communities have considered fining distracted walkers and Schwebel says it may take that to change behavior. Nasar says he favors taking steps such as posting "Put down your cell phone" signs at crosswalks and educating the public. "Parents should tell their children to put down their cellphones while walking," he says. And they "should model and follow their own advice."

Ebel, a pediatrician, says most of the distracted walkers in her study were adults, but she thinks changing the behavior of children and teens is most urgent. One suggestion: She would like to see middle and high school students repeat her study and watch for distracted pedestrians in their neighborhoods. That alone, she says, could raise awareness and change habits.