Distraction and pedestrian safety: How talking on the phone, texting, and listening to music impact crossing the street

Abstract

As use of handheld multimedia devices has exploded globally, safety experts have begun to consider the impact of distraction while talking, text-messaging, or listening to music on traffic safety. This study was designed to test how talking on the phone, texting, and listening to music may influence pedestrian safety. 138 college students crossed an interactive, semi-immersive virtual pedestrian street. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups: crossing while talking on the phone, crossing while texting, crossing while listening to a personal music device, or crossing while undistracted. Participants distracted by music or texting were more likely to be hit by a vehicle in the virtual pedestrian environment than were undistracted participants. Participants in all three distracted groups were more likely to look away from the street environment (and look toward other places, such as their telephone or music device) than were undistracted participants. Findings were maintained after controlling for demographics, walking frequency, and media use frequency. Distraction from multimedia devices has a small but meaningful impact on college students’ pedestrian safety. Future research should consider the cognitive demands of pedestrian safety, and how those processes may be impacted by distraction. Policymakers might consider ways to protect distracted pedestrians from harm and to reduce the number of individuals crossing streets while distracted.

Effects of mobile texting and gaming on gait with obstructions under different illumination levels

“…Pedestrian use of mobile phones increases cognitive distraction, decreases the ability to react to sudden changes, and increases disturbing actions causing injury or even death [3][4][5][6]. For example, in a virtual experiment, it was shown that texting while walking increases the chance of being hit by a car or a motorcycle; moreover, texting is a distraction from the surroundings [7]. Previous research on texting while walking has shown that pedestrians walk slower with less traffic awareness [3,5].…”

Influence of mobile phone texting on gait parameters during ramp ascent and descent

“…Gait change with regard to mobile phone use threatens pedestrian safety [10]. When crossing the street, individuals texting on a mobile phone are more likely to be struck by a car than those with high concentration [5]. In the practical study of Schabrun et al [2] 35% of subjects had experienced an accident during mobile phone use, and 83% of the subjects in our study had an increased risk of accident resulting from mobile phone use.…”

“…Previously, there were many concerns about the risk of using mobile phones during driving. However, concerns on the risk of using mobile phones during walking have increased recently [4,5]. For example, pedestrian accidents related to mobile phone use have increased since 2006 [6].…”

Study on the Effect of Distraction for Pedestrian Crossing

“…Foreign experts have made in-depth studies on pedestrian distraction [1][2][3][4][5][6], at the same time, they have made studies on different groups of people. The main research idea is to select the research object in the way of random sampling, then to further understand the walking habits, gender, age, race and so on of the research object, and carry out training on experiment courses.…”