This Just In: Walking and Chewing Gum is Now Illegal

Well, not yet anyway, but it makes me wonder what daring lawmaker will introduce that piece of legislation at some point in the near future.  (Hopefully it won’t be anyone in Massachusetts.)  However, Carl Kruger, a state legislator in New York, has recently introduced a bill to make it illegal for pedestrians to use an “electronic device” while crossing the street.  So if you use your cell phone or iPod while crossing, you face a $100 fine.

The rationale for the bill?  I suppose that depends on how cynical you are.  The stated rationale according to Kruger is to minimize the casualties that distracted pedestrians cause.  The more cynical among us may believe that such an “interesting” piece of legislation garners Kruger a great deal of publicity that he would have otherwise never received.  And the most cynical among us may even believe that such a law would do nothing but generate tons of revenue for the cash-strapped state.  But I’m a lawyer so I could never be that cynical.  Ahem.

But let’s give the state senator the benefit of the doubt and say that the law is meant only to punish and deter distracted pedestrians.  Is it any more distracting than say, looking down at your feet while walking?  Or talking to a colleague who’s walking with you?  Or being engaged in deep thought?  Or doing any number of other things?  I would even argue that talking on the phone or listening to your iPod (at a reasonable volume) while walking is perhaps even less distracting than looking down at your feet or talking to someone you’re walking with, because at least you can still keep your eyes ahead on where you’re going.

Many of us have seen the recent video of the woman in the mall who walked into a fountain while texting.  And let’s face it … it’s funny.  The type of funny that could best be categorized as “I’m-glad-it-wasn’t-me-because-it-easily-could-have-been” funny.  Having been a distracted pedestrian on more than one occasion—and who hasn’t?—I can relate.  In fact, given the apparent upsurge of this phenomenon, let’s even coin a new term for it.  Let’s call those texting-while-walking folks, ”Petextians.” (Hey, it’s the best I can do this late in the day.)

Bad sniglets aside, do we really need laws against it?  Doesn’t a good cautionary laugh and widespread circulation in the media and on the Internet help to achieve the same result?  Seriously, who wants to be that woman (or for that matter, the lawyer who’s representing her in the ensuing ridiculous lawsuit).  It highlights the problem better than any law ever could.  And no matter what anyone may say, it’s just not the same thing as laws which seek to restrict such activities by drivers (or even bicyclists).

First of all, while talking on the phone or texting or even listening to an iPod while walking can certainly be dangerous in some instances, it just doesn’t rise to the same level of danger as someone doing so while driving a car.  I suppose the question is this:  To whom is it dangerous?  We’ve all heard stories of distracted or drunk drivers killing entire families or multiple people in accidents, but oftentimes walking away without injury themselves.  Cars can be lethal weapons that can hurt a lot of people.  (Even a speeding bicyclist can hurt a few people if distracted.)  So laws that attempt to punish and deter distracted driving make sense because of the magnitude of harm that they seek to prevent.

But distracted pedestrians?  In most instances, these folks will really only kill or injure themselves.  I’m not saying that some poor driver wouldn’t be traumatized if a “petextian” walked in front of his car and got hit, but it’s really hard to save people from themselves especially in this fast-paced, multi-tasking existence that all of us seem to have now.  I’m also not arguing that minimizing these sorts of individual casualties is an unworthy legislative goal, but just how much should government micro-manage the daily affairs of an individual?  We all walk, after all.  Just how big should the “nanny state” get?

Given how widespread this prospectively prohibited conduct is in a city as big as New York, the potential for abuse and selective enforcement of such laws is enormous.  Just wait until these laws pass and then a ton of videos are posted on YouTube showing cops, politicians, and celebrities crossing the street on the phone or listening to their iPods without ever once having to pay a fine.  Or maybe police officers will just target  the “pretty” girls.  Or better yet, maybe states will just “re-purpose” those ubiquitous traffic cameras with face recognition technology and folks will receive their $100 fines in the mail.  What a great revenue generator that’ll be for a state.

Such laws may sound ridiculous, but don’t count New York out just yet.  Remember that it was the first state to pass a ban of handheld cell phone use while driving.  And all it takes is just one state—particularly a large populous state like New York or California—to open the floodgates to all sorts of new laws.  So when will some enterprising politician introduce the “No Looking Down at Your Feet While Walking” Act?

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