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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the hey!-pay-attention dept.

El Reg reports [theregister.co.uk]

The German city of Augsburg is embedding warning lights in the pavement at traffic intersections to alert smartphone users who don't looking up before crossing the road.

Rows of red LEDs have been embedded in the pavement after a 15-year-old girl was killed when she stepped in front of a tram while looking at her smartphone and listening to music. Two other people have been seriously injured in separate but similar incidents.

The city authorities have installed the lights at two tram stops near the local university and will roll out the scheme if successful. It's particularly concerned that young people are most at risk.

The Germans have invented a word for these preoccupied people: smombies (a contraction of smartphone and zombie).

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