According to NYC DOT, it's safe to cross a street while texting

[fiamme red]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/nyregion/texting-walking-report.html

...Worried about the danger that addictive smartphones might pose on car-clogged streets, New York State lawmakers in 2017 ordered New York City to study “the dangers of being a distracted pedestrian.”

Now the results are in: Texting while walking in the five boroughs will most likely not get you killed, according to a report released by the city’s Transportation Department last week.

The study found “little concrete evidence that device-induced distracted walking contributes significantly to pedestrian fatalities and injuries.” In a review of national data, local reports and public health studies, the Transportation Department confirmed what safe-streets advocates nationwide have long held: cars pose more of a fatal threat to pedestrians than chatty group texts...I was commuting by bike a few days ago and almost hit a woman who stepped off the curb into the segregated bike lane while texting. I don't think the NYC DOT should encourage this practice with a study based on scanty data.

[Ozz]

you need to look and see if the person is wearing little white earbuds.....

that is the signal that responsibility for their personal safety has been transferred to those around them....

as they are too busy to be bothered with the risk of death.

[zmalwo]

If everyone biked to where ever they go we would have universal healthcare by now.

[nooneline]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/nyregion/texting-walking-report.html

I was commuting by bike a few days ago and almost hit a woman who stepped off the curb into the segregated bike lane while texting. I don't think the NYC DOT should encourage this practice with a study based on scanty data.

No, the DOT does not say "it's safe to cross a street while texting." They say that "device-induced distracted walking [does not] contribute significantly to pedestrian fatalities." Those are two different things.

six years of data on pedestrian fatalities across the country summing nearly 30,000 cases, and having those data align with 4 years of NYC data showing 2 phone-related incidents out of nearly 900 fatalities, both saying about 0.2% of incidents are related to ped phone use - seems to me that that's a lot of data, and that the conclusion that ped phone use doesn't contribute to a meaningful number of ped fatalities is completely supported.

the DOT isn't encouraging any practice - just being clear about what's actually dangerous.

perceived danger and actual danger are two very different things, which is why a lot more people get prescriptions of anti-anxiety medications to travel by plan than they do to travel by car.

https://i.imgur.com/W7e0FeR.png

[nooneline]

So here's why the DOT does a study on something like this.

They want to reduce traffic fatalities. Good!

To do that, they have to understand what behaviors drive the most fatalities. Some city councilperson starts getting loud at a meeting about distracted pedestrians, the newspapers cover it, and the DOT has to review the data to see if phone-distracted peds are the reason that people are dying.

And they find that surprise, it's not the reason that people are dying. Which is to say that if you magically wave a wand and nobody ever looks at a phone while on the sidewalk or street again, guess what? It wouldn't dent fatality numbers.

This allows the DOT to focus on the real behavior that is a) obviously dangerous and b) contributes to the most pedestrian fatalities: speeding, failure to yield, and driver inattention.

Here's the report, with their copious amounts of data and their very clear and sensible conclusions: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/distraction-shouldnt-be-deadly.pdf

[benb]

Yah the full report says of course it's better to not be distracted with your phone while crossing the street.

But it also says concentrating on getting drivers to be more safe is more important for reducing injuries.

[fiamme red]

Pedestrian distraction is usually not reported in crash data. When pedestrians are killed while holding a cell phone, investigators don't go through their records to see if they were texting at the moment of the crash.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095756415000689#bib11

"Though newspapers have reported vehicles hitting and killing pedestrians who were talking or manipulating mobile devices (Sridharan and Parrino, 2005, Zeller, 2007), this information was not shown on crash reports (Hedlund, 2010)."

[nooneline]

yeah but the DOT study complimented national crash reports with city crash reports, and also factored in observational studies on pedestrian phone use and emergency room data with pedestrian self-reports.

the latter category is interesting, a study of a few hundred injured pedestrians found that 14% WERE distracted, but the extreme minority of those distracted, injured pedestrians were distracted by looking down at a phone screen.

"It is of note that while observations reflect that 9-13% of pedestrians are distracted by a phone while crossing the street, only 0.2% of New York City pedestrian fatality reports reflect electronic distraction at the time of the crash. Cell phone use by pedestrians does not appear to be disproportionately contributing to fatal pedestrian crashes."

i mean, believe what you want, but personally in a world of finite resources i'd rather see the focus placed on the actually dangerous driver behavior than occasionally irritating pedestrian behavior. after all, speeding, driver inattention, and failure to yield are factors in over half of fatal crashes.

[cash05458]

How about this?...pay attention while driving and walking as well...they really needed to do a study on this? We can make anything complicated I suppose...

[XXtwindad]

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=238077&highlight=wandering

[jtbadge]

Great, another victim blaming thread.

[FlashUNC]

How about this?...pay attention while driving and walking as well...they really needed to do a study on this? We can make anything complicated I suppose...

It's almost like science requires collection and evaluation of evidence to confirm a hypothesis.

Weird.

[Blue Jays]

"...How about this?...pay attention while driving and walking as well..."Agreed. There is no upside to being distracted 24 x 7 x 365 with a smartphone.

[fiamme red]

It's almost like science requires collection and evaluation of evidence to confirm a hypothesis.

Weird.Except that the "study" by NYC DOT is a manipulation of statistics, not science.

[cash05458]

It's almost like science requires collection and evaluation of evidence to confirm a hypothesis.

Weird.

you call that science? Yep...Mendel stuff for sure...

[FlashUNC]

Except that the "study" by NYC DOT is a manipulation of statistics, not science.

Pretty bold claim for what on read seems like a reasonable enough study of publicly available statistics. Care to elaborate on your view?

you call that science? Yep...Mendel stuff for sure...

I'm sorry Marie Curie was too busy looking at her phone to contribute to this study?

[cash05458]

Pretty bold claim for what on read seems like a reasonable enough study of publicly available statistics. Care to elaborate on your view?



I'm sorry Marie Curie was too busy looking at her phone to contribute to this study?

then but of course...science says its fine to walk around looking at your phone on some of the world's most busy traffic areas...sure, why not...

[nooneline]

lol, people here want to blame the science for the fact that they're working really hard to misinterpret it.

[fiamme red]

Pretty bold claim for what on read seems like a reasonable enough study of publicly available statistics. Care to elaborate on your view?From the DOT "study":

It is of note that while observations reflect that 9-13% of pedestrians are distracted by a phone while crossing the street, only 0.2% of New York City pedestrian fatality reports reflect electronic distraction at the time of the crash. Cell phone use by pedestrians does not appear to be disproportionately contributing to fatal pedestrian crashes.That's an unwarranted conclusion. Crash reports usually don't mention that the pedestrian was distracted, because police don't look through the cell phone records of a pedestrian hit by a car.

Peer-reviewed studies show clearly that pedestrians crossing the street while distracted are at much greater risk, e.g.:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457512003788

Results
Participants reported using mobile Internet with great frequency in daily life, including while walking across streets. In the virtual street environment, pedestrian behavior was greatly altered and generally more risky when participants were distracted by Internet use. While distracted, participants waited longer to cross the street (F = 42.37), missed more safe opportunities to cross (F = 42.63), took longer to initiate crossing when a safe gap was available (F = 53.03), looked left and right less often (F = 124.68), spent more time looking away from the road (F = 1959.78), and were more likely to be hit or almost hit by an oncoming vehicle (F = 29.54; all ps < 0.01). Results were retained after controlling for randomized order; participant gender, age, and ethnicity; and both pedestrian habits and mobile Internet experience.

Conclusion
Pedestrian behavior was influenced, and generally considerably riskier, when participants were simultaneously using mobile Internet and crossing the street than when crossing the street with no distraction. This finding reinforces the need for increased awareness concerning the risks of distracted pedestrian behavior.

[FlashUNC]

then but of course...science says its fine to walk around looking at your phone on some of the world's most busy traffic areas...sure, why not...

The report or "science" never says that. But don't let that get in the way of some online snark.

[cash05458]

yes...flash, we get it...cars do kill and ARE the killers...but still, stay off the friggin phone while walking around high traffic areas...it's like putting guns in a nursery school...doesn't take a genius or a scientific study...

[FlashUNC]

yes...flash, we get it...cars do kill and ARE the killers...but still, stay off the friggin phone while walking around high traffic areas...it's like putting guns in a nursery school...doesn't take a genius or a scientific study...

It does when DOT is making policy decisions about how best to minimize pedestrian injuries and fatalities. What's a better use of resources, telling people to stay off their phones, or encouraging better driver behavior.

As the study's conclusions point out:

People will inevitably be
distracted when they walk with mobile devices, or may be distracted in other ways. But, in line with New
York City’s Vision Zero policy, this common human error should not result in death.

Doesn't take a genius to understand that right?

[mt2u77]

If 9-13% of pedestrians are distracted by a phone at any given time but only account for 0.2% of fatalities, then phone use appears to make you SAFER. An absurdity, no? If there was no effect, wouldn't the rate of death be randomly distributed over the population, so you would expect 9-13% of deaths to involve phone use and 87-91% not. Instead, we have 0.2%, so what gives?

It's some combination of incomplete data (in most cases, no one really knows if a phone was involved or not, so it's not reported) and discrepancy of terms (I'm guessing the 9-13% was observed on a random sidewalk, not at the moment/location people actually get hit-- even people on phones are decent at paying attention at critical moments).

Either way, the main/only conclusion is that very few deaths involve a confirmed distraction by technology. How many involve unconfirmed distraction remains unknown.

[cash05458]

It does when DOT is making policy decisions about how best to minimize pedestrian injuries and fatalities. What's a better use of resources, telling people to stay off their phones, or encouraging better driver behavior.

As the study's conclusions point out:



Doesn't take a genius to understand that right?

my point is this should not be a either/or thing...and to be honest, doesn't seem like NYC is doing very well about either/or...but that is prolly just the nature of the beast...jam too many rats into a certain sized maze and this is what you are going to get...

[fiamme red]

It does when DOT is making policy decisions about how best to minimize pedestrian injuries and fatalities. What's a better use of resources, telling people to stay off their phones, or encouraging better driver behavior.

As the study's conclusions point out:

"People will inevitably be distracted when they walk with mobile devices, or may be distracted in other ways. But, in line with New York City’s Vision Zero policy, this common human error should not result in death."

Doesn't take a genius to understand that right?The use of resources here is to show that crossing the street while distracted by a mobile device is not really dangerous, and that the practice shouldn't be strongly discouraged.

Sorry, but crossing a busy street while distracted by a mobile device is not a "common human error," as the DOT calls it. It's common human stupidity.

[fiamme red]

If 9-13% of pedestrians are distracted by a phone at any given time but only account for 0.2% of fatalities, then phone use appears to make you SAFER. An absurdity, no? If there was no effect, wouldn't the rate of death be randomly distributed over the population, so you would expect 9-13% of deaths to involve phone use and 87-91% not. Instead, we have 0.2%, so what gives?

It's some combination of incomplete data (in most cases, no one really knows if a phone was involved or not, so it's not reported) and discrepancy of terms (I'm guessing the 9-13% was observed on a random sidewalk, not at the moment/location people actually get hit-- even people on phones are decent at paying attention at critical moments).

Either way, the main/only conclusion is that very few deaths involve a confirmed distraction by technology. How many involve unconfirmed distraction remains unknown.This is an excellent logical analysis that shows the flaw in the DOT's argument.

And you are correct, the 9-13% were observed on a random sidewalk. From the DOT report:

In November 2017 DOT undertook a study of pedestrian mobile device distraction at three signalized intersections in Queens: Queens Boulevard & 44th Street, 34th Avenue & 30th Street, and Broadway & Hooper Street. The observer watched pedestrians crossing the street and noted if a pedestrian was distracted by looking at or interacting with their devices while crossing the street. Depending on the signal phase the rate of pedestrian distraction ranged from 10% - 14%, with a rate of 13% overall. The vast majority of pedestrians (87%) were not distracted when crossing the street.

[FlashUNC]

The use of resources here is to show that crossing the street while distracted by a mobile device is not really dangerous, and that the practice shouldn't be strongly discouraged.

Sorry, but crossing a busy street while distracted by a mobile device is not a "common human error," as the DOT calls it. It's common human stupidity.

That's not what the report says at all. It makes clear distraction is an issue. But at least with current available data sources not as clear a contributor as other, more driver focused issues.

I'd suggest reading the link from earlier in the thread. It's not long.

https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/distraction-shouldnt-be-deadly.pdf