SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Honolulu, Hawaii police will begin to write tickets for people caught using their phones or other electronic devices while crossing at a crosswalk:
Police in Honolulu will begin writing tickets for people who get distracted by their cellphones while walking in a cross walk Wednesday. Honolulu is the first major city in the country to pass such a law, citing a high rate of pedestrians being hit in crosswalks.
"Starting today, texting while walking in a cross walk can get you a ticket," Hawaii Public Radio's Bill Dorman reports for our Newscast unit. "In fact, a downward glance at a screen of any kind will cost you—a phone, a tablet, a video game."
Under the new law, the only legal reason for a pedestrian to use a cellphone while crossing a street or highway would be to call 911 to report an emergency.
Minimum fines for breaking the new law start at $15; for repeat offenders, the penalty ranges from $75 to $99. Higher rates — up to $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second, and $500 for a third — had been considered earlier this year.
Also at the City and County of Honolulu. Bill 6 (2017).
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday October 26 2017, @11:34AM
Yes it should - assuming that your motivation is to actually save lives rather than keep some anal-retentive after-the-fact ledger in which every incident is assigned precisely one victim and one culprit.
A few years ago I was using a pedestrian crossing. I pressed the button, the traffic lights turned red, the green man lit up (that's British for "WALK" signal)... and a second later a bloody great truck blew through the lights at about 30 mph. If I'd crossed when the lights changed, do you know how much it would have helped to know that, legally, it was entirely the truck driver's liability? Ans: not one fucking bit because I'd still have been dead. I doubt the truck driver was some sort of evil sociopath, either - just some poor schmuck under pressure to work long hours and stick to silly timetables if he wanted to sleep indoors and eat hot meals, who had a 1-second brainfart and who's life would have been screwed up badly by the accident.
Fortunately, in this case I was still standing on the path giving the evil eye to the driver as he barrelled past - because although I'm as fallible as the next person, when I cross the road, generally, I actually take some personal fucking responsibility and look at the traffic before crossing, whatever the lights say. I know that some drivers are idiots while others simply don't have 360 degree X-ray vision and fighter-pilot reflexes, and 100% of them (until Tesla and Google get their way) are fallible human beings.
...and, yes, there have always been pedestrian accidents, sometimes entirely the driver's fault, sometimes with contributory negligence from the pedestrians, but smartphone zombies are a new and growing problem - both on foot and behind the wheel. Safe driving speed along a road lined with shambling Cloudheads is approximately 1 mph (which will cause a white Audi to materialise spontaneously 10mm behind your rear bumper and start flashing its laser-pointer headlights at you).
Now, obviously, the same standards should be applied to drivers and I don't get why the Honolulu bill has bits about using devices while driving crossed out - maybe there are some shenanigans there, maybe there's already a texting-and-driving law, maybe its covered by state law.... However, most jurisdictions already have laws requiring drivers to remain in control of their vehicles and pay attention (in the UK it's "driving without due care and attention") than can be - and are - applied to all sorts of distracted driving (e.g. people get done for eating chocolate bars while driving, although for some bizarre reason, rolling up small cylindrical bundles of leaves and using a naked flame to set them smouldering seems to get a free pass - as long as they're the right sort of leaves).
(Also, I spend most of the day sitting down in front of a screen, so when I do have an opportunity to walk from A to B, I see it as an opportunity to "look up", rest my eyes and get some exercise and maybe do some thinking - whereas the iZombies/Zomdroids seem to be showing symptoms of addiction and obsessive-compulsive behaviour and really need professional help )