Common sense before cops

The humorous Windows Phone 7 commercial shows distracted cell phone users texting in everyday situations with a message prompting us to “Be Here Now.” While a guy dropping his phone in a urinal and a jogger texting on the run are funny representations of how technology rules our lives, some lawmakers might be taking the critique too far.

In New York, the legislature’s transportation committee has a pending bill that would prohibit the use of electronic devices while crossing streets.

That means no mobile phones and no iPods on the crosswalks for pedestrians and runners. Oregon and Virginia have pending legislation that would similarly restrict bicyclists in an effort to promote traffic safety.

But whereas bikers are actually part of the traffic flow on the road, it seems excessive to have laws preventing earbud-using runners from crossing at intersections.

New York’s bill suggests iPods are entirely newfangled dangers and forgets the Walkmans of decades past. We’ve learned to strut with earpieces since the ’80s, so why is legislation cracking down on pedestrian music now?

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, the first six months of 2010 showed a slight increase in pedestrian fatalities for the first time in four years. Traffic-related deaths are nothing to shrug at, but perhaps more preventive laws are not the answer.

Indiana currently has laws banning novice drivers (younger than 18) not only from text messaging while driving but also from any sort of cell phone usage.
We see this as an obvious and necessary step toward traffic safety, but forbidding runners to put on headphones is ridiculous. Future legislation should fall in between these two restrictions.

If anything, the effort of enforcing this law would be better spent
tracking down intoxicated drivers.

The earbud-jogger issues belong more to the realm of common sense. Marie Wickham, 56, sums it up nicely when interviewed by the New York Times. She understands the concerns but ultimately calls the legislation “an infringement on
personal rights.”

“At some point,” she said, “we need to take responsibility for our own stupidity.”  
Crossing the street absentmindedly is dangerous, so we all need to grow up and remember to look both ways. Common sense needs to be checked by each individual, not the cops.