Smartphone 'zombies' banned on streets of Honolulu

Scrolling through your Facebook feed as you cross the road could soon land you a fine in Honolulu, Hawaii, where the city council is determined to get distracted phone users unglued from their screens around traffic.

Last week, Honolulu's mayor signed a bill intended to reduce the number of road accidents involving mobile phone use.

An amendment to city by-laws now specifies that "no pedestrian shall cross a street or highway while viewing a mobile electronic device.

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The new rule comes into force in October, from when a fine of up to $99 (£75) will come into force, with an exception for calls to emergency services.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the attention-grabbing measure was a necessary response to Honolulu's road accident rate.

"We hold the unfortunate distinction of being a major city with more pedestrians being hit in crosswalks, particularly our seniors, than almost any other city in the county," Caldwell said.

The bill, the first of its kind, "comes as cities around the world grapple with how to protect phone-obsessed 'smartphone zombies' from injuring themselves by stepping into traffic or running into stationary objects," says Reuters.

Between 2001 and 2011, more than 11,000 people in the United States sustained injuries while distracted by their phones, the news service reports.

Not everyone was impressed by the idea, however. There is "virtually no evidence" to support a correlation between smartphone use and more traffic collisions involving pedestrians, says Slate's Henry Grabar. In fact, Honolulu's new ordinance "perpetuat[es] the media-driven myth that pedestrians are responsible for their own deaths".

Using a mobile phone at the wheel is a far more deadly risk, he writes, citing figures that show that collisions involving only vehicles have increased at the same rate as collisions involving pedestrians. Vehicles are the common denominator, he suggests.

The most recent Governors Highway Safety Association report published in the US indicates that mobile phone use is a comparatively low cause of pedestrian collisions, compared to poor street lighting - cited in three-quarters of such collisions - and intoxication.