[nfb-talk] Fw: Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky

qubit lauraeaves at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 30 21:09:16 UTC 2010


You know, I was going to come up with an example of someone dying in a bus 
accident, but I can't think of one -- in fact, I live in Minnesota and when 
the I35 bridge collapsed a few years ago, a school bus with 40 kids and a 
driver on it plunged 40 feet and landed hard, but no one was seriously hurt. 
In fact, with all the traffic that day, there were only 9 fatalities.
Lots of examples of idiots driving while texting and getting in accidents 
though.
--le
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Fw: Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky


I just take public transportation. Nobody ever gets killed riding the
bus.

Actually, I'm being a litle facetious. Of course, I still ride with my
friends. I am only half joking though because it does often amaze me
who they let have drivers licenses.

On Jan 30, 2010, at 10:40 AM, Antonio M. Guimaraes wrote:

> John,
>
> Care are not the problem, but the careless humans driving the are.
>
> One need not be afraid to ride, walk or fly, lest he be confined to
> his home.
>
> Antonio Guimaraes
>
> If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of
> pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an
> infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all
> the world's great literary works in Braille.
>
> Shop online and support the NFB of RI at no additional cost to you.
> http://www.givebackamerica.com/charity.php?b=169
> Givebackamerica.org, America's Online Charity Shopping Mall
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John G. Heim"
> <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 10:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Fw: Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is
> Risky
>
>
>> Holy cow! A blind person was walking and talking on a cell phone?
>> Well, the guy had guts anyway.
>>
>> Anybody else afraid to ride in cars? I mean, I'm not so afraid that
>> I refuse to do it but I just don't like riding in cars any more. It
>> makes me nervous. You're going 30 to 60 miles an hour and all
>> that's keeping you alive is that bozo sitting next to you in the
>> drivers seat. I don't know about your buddies but trusting my life
>> to those guys is pretty scary.
>>
>> I've got one friend in particular who has to slam on the brakes and
>> yell, "Oh s**t" at least once every time we go somewhere together.
>> That guy can't keep his mind on what he's doing for 2 minutes.
>> Don't get me wrong, he's a wonderful human being but some people
>> just shouldn't be allowed to drive.
>>
>> My fear of riding in a car really began when I read about a blind
>> congressman from somewhere down south who was killed when the car
>> he was a passenger in careened off a bridge. This was before the
>> days of cell phones but the driver was probably putzing with the
>> radio or something. Drivers are always doing that sort of thing.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Outman" <woutman at earthlink.net
>> >
>> To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 3:53 PM
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Fw: Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is
>> Risky
>>
>>
>>> Very interesting.
>>>
>>> I don't remember all the details but I heard of a blind person
>>> being killed
>>> here in Florida a couple years or so back talking on a cell and
>>> walking, not
>>> realizing he had wandered into the street.  We've all got to watch
>>> it when
>>> using our gadgets.
>>>
>>> Bill Outman
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org
>>> ] On
>>> Behalf Of John G. Heim
>>> Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 10:49 AM
>>> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>>> Subject: [nfb-talk] Fw: Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky
>>>
>>> Below is a copy of an article someone forwarded to meabout how
>>> dangerous it
>>> is to walk and use your cell phone. The reason I'm forwarding it
>>> is that I
>>> wwork on the campus of the University of Wisconsin and I can
>>> confirm that
>>> this is a problem. Over the past few years, the number of
>>> collisions with
>>> other pedestrians that I have experienced has increased
>>> dramatically. Almost
>>>
>>> without exception, when I have a collision with someone, they're
>>> talking on
>>> a cell phone or listening to an ipod.  Last summer I was hit by a
>>> girl on a
>>> bicycle. She got knocked down and at first I was very apologetic.
>>> But then
>>> on-lookers told me that she was talking on a cell phone when she
>>> hit me. So
>>> she was riding her bike on a crowded sidewalk and talking on her
>>> cell phone.
>>>
>>> In retrospect, I think she was lucky she didn't hurt me.
>>>
>>> Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 8:32 AM
>>> Subject: Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky
>>>
>>>
>>>> Driven to Distraction
>>>> Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky.
>>>> SAN FRANCISCO - On the day of the collision last month,
>>>> visibility was
>>>> good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany
>>>> Briggs,
>>>> 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in
>>>> conversation.
>>>> Very lost.
>>>> "I ran into a truck," Ms. Briggs said.
>>>>
>>>> It was parked in a driveway.
>>>>
>>>> Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the
>>>> inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and
>>>> text.
>>>>
>>>> But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes
>>>> multitasking -
>>>
>>>> distracted walking - which combines a pedestrian, an electronic
>>>> device and
>>>
>>>> an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy
>>>> left on
>>>> the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.
>>>>
>>>> The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more
>>>> perilous,
>>>> particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where
>>>> multiple
>>>> multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own
>>>> devices.
>>>>
>>>> Most times, the mishaps for a distracted walker are minor, like the
>>>> lightly dinged head and broken fingernail that Ms. Briggs
>>>> suffered, a
>>>> jammed digit or a sprained ankle, and, the befallen say, a nasty
>>>> case of
>>>> hurt pride. Of course, the injuries can sometimes be serious -
>>>> and they
>>>> are on the rise.
>>>>
>>>> Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in
>>>> 2008
>>>> because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into
>>>> something while
>>>> using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from
>>>> 2007,
>>>> which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study
>>>> conducted by Ohio
>>>
>>>> State University, which says it is the first to estimate such
>>>> accidents.
>>>>
>>>> "It's the tip of the iceberg," said Jack L. Nasar, a professor of
>>>> city and
>>>
>>>> regional planning at Ohio State, noting that the number of
>>>> mishaps is
>>>> probably much higher considering that most of the injuries are
>>>> not severe
>>>> enough to require a hospital visit. What is more, he said,
>>>> texting is
>>>> rising sharply and devices like the iPhone have thousands of new,
>>>> engaging
>>>
>>>> applications to preoccupy phone users.
>>>>
>>>> Mr. Nasar supervised the statistical analysis, which was done by
>>>> Derek
>>>> Troyer, one of his graduate students. He looked at records of
>>>> emergency
>>>> room visits compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
>>>>
>>>> Examples of such visits include a 16-year-old boy who walked into a
>>>> telephone pole while texting and suffered a concussion; a 28-year-
>>>> old man
>>>> who tripped and fractured a finger on the hand gripping his
>>>> cellphone; and
>>>
>>>> a 68-year-old man who fell off the porch while talking on a
>>>> cellphone,
>>>> spraining a thumb and an ankle and causing dizziness.
>>>>
>>>> Young people injured themselves more often. About half the visits
>>>> Mr.
>>>> Troyer studied were by people under 30, and a quarter were 16 to
>>>> 20 years
>>>> old. But more than a quarter of those injured were 41 to 60 years
>>>> old.
>>>>
>>>> Pedestrians, like drivers, have long been distracted by myriad
>>>> tasks, like
>>>
>>>> snacking or reading on the go. But the constant interaction with
>>>> electronic devices has made single-tasking seem boring or even
>>>> unproductive.
>>>>
>>>> Cognitive psychologists, neurologists and other researchers are
>>>> beginning
>>>> to study the impact of constant multitasking, whether behind a
>>>> desk or the
>>>
>>>> wheel or on foot. It might stand to reason that someone looking
>>>> at a phone
>>>
>>>> to read a message would misstep, but the researchers are finding
>>>> that just
>>>
>>>> talking on a phone takes its own considerable toll on cognition and
>>>> awareness.
>>>>
>>>> Sometimes, pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects
>>>> or people
>>>> that are right in front of them - even a clown riding a unicycle.
>>>> That was
>>>
>>>> the finding of a recent study at Western Washington University in
>>>> Bellingham, Wash., by a psychology professor, Ira Hyman, and his
>>>> students.
>>>>
>>>> One of the students dressed as a clown and unicycled around a
>>>> central
>>>> square on campus. About half the people walking past by
>>>> themselves said
>>>> they had seen the clown, and the number was slightly higher for
>>>> people
>>>> walking in pairs. But only 25 percent of people talking on a
>>>> cellphone
>>>> said they had, Mr. Hyman said.
>>>>
>>>> He said the term commonly applied to such preoccupation is
>>>> "inattention
>>>> blindness," meaning a person can be looking at an object but fail
>>>> to
>>>> register it or process what it is.
>>>>
>>>> Particularly fascinating, Mr. Hyman said, is that people walking
>>>> in pairs
>>>> were more than twice as likely to see the clown as were people
>>>> talking on
>>>> a cellphone, suggesting that the act of simply having a
>>>> conversation is
>>>> not the cause of inattention blindness.
>>>>
>>>> One possible explanation is that a cellphone conversation taxes
>>>> not just
>>>> auditory resources in the brain but also visual functions, said
>>>> Adam
>>>> Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San
>>>> Francisco.
>>>
>>>> That combination, he said, prompts the listener to, for example,
>>>> create
>>>> visual imagery related to the conversation in a way that
>>>> overrides or
>>>> obscures the processing of real images.
>>>>
>>>> By comparison, walking and chewing gum (that age-old measure of
>>>> pedestrian
>>>
>>>> skill at multitasking) is a snap.
>>>>
>>>> "Walking and chewing are repetitive, well-practiced tasks that
>>>> become
>>>> automatic," Dr. Gazzaley said. "They don't compete for resources
>>>> like
>>>> texting and walking."
>>>>
>>>> Further, he said, the cellphone gives people a constant
>>>> opportunity to
>>>> pursue goals that feel more important than walking down the street.
>>>>
>>>> "An animal would never walk into a pole," he said, noting survival
>>>> instincts would trump other priorities.
>>>>
>>>> For Shalamar Jones, 19, the priority was keeping in touch with her
>>>> boyfriend. Last month while she was Christmas shopping in a mall
>>>> near San
>>>> Francisco, she was texting him when - bam! - she walked into the
>>>> window of
>>>
>>>> a New York & Company store, thinking it was a door.
>>>>
>>>> "I thought it was open," she said, noting that no harm was done.
>>>> "I just
>>>> started laughing at myself."
>>>>
>>>> The worst part is the humiliation, said Christopher Black, 20, an
>>>> art
>>>> student at San Francisco State University who 18 months ago had
>>>> his own
>>>> pratfall.
>>>>
>>>> At the time, Mr. Black said, the sidewalks were packed with
>>>> pedestrians.
>>>> So he decided he could move faster if he walked in the street,
>>>> keeping
>>>> close to the parked cars. The trouble is he was also texting -
>>>> with a
>>>> woman he was flirting with.
>>>>
>>>> He unwittingly started to veer into the road, prompting an
>>>> oncoming car to
>>>
>>>> honk. He said he instinctively jumped toward the sidewalk but, in
>>>> the
>>>> process, forgot about the line of parked cars.
>>>>
>>>> "I splayed against the side of the car, and the phone hit the
>>>> ground," he
>>>> said. He and his phone were uninjured, except for his pride. "It
>>>> was
>>>> pretty significantly embarrassing."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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