It’s fair to say that texting while driving is pretty dangerous. Our British government and its counterparts around the world imposing wallet-wrecking punishments on anyone caught using a mobile phone at the wheel, and rightfully so. A town in the state of New Jersey, however, has literally taken the law a step further – making it illegal to be seen texting while walking.
Residents of Fort Lee, NJ have been issued with pamphlets by state police advising on the hazards created by text-walking as warning of the overly-severe $85 fine for being caught in the now unlawful act and 117 fines have already been slapped on sidewalk offenders since the seemingly daft ruling was made legit.
You need go no further than YouTube to see some of the hilarious fails that are captured when text-walking goes bad. But as silly as it sometimes seems, the ban on texting while walking surfaced after some serious incidents where careless walking under the influence of Facebook or other forms of mobile social communication were factors in the deaths of 3 people. These pedestrian casualties were believed to be unaware of where they were going because they were too distracted by their smartphones when these accidents happened.
We can understand the reason for this law been passed but would like to think we’d have the common sense to avoid more than bumping into someone in the street while replying to an all-important SMS. Sadly for the people of New Jersey sending one text could potentially come seriously costly!
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