'Text Walking Lanes' Exist For People Who Can't Look Up From Phones
Well, this is one way to deal with obnoxiously distracted walkers.
DisobeyArt/ShutterStock We've all seen it or been a victim of it, and let's be honest: we've also been culprits of it. Texting while walking is now becoming huge, since people are so damn addicted to their phones.
Texting while walking is seriously annoying to other pedestrians, because people tend to slow down to pay attention to their phones. But texting while walking can also be dangerous, as there can be holes or tripping hazards on the sidewalk. People have walked into manholes, potholes, or and have fallen because they're too busy to look up from their phones to see where they're going.
People can't even take their eyes off of their cell phones while they walk up the stairs, or even while they drive, so it's no surprise that people decided to do something about it!
A Dutch smartphone laboratory called Mlab playfully points out this problem by creating a publicity stunt to create text walking lanes with paint in a city called Antwerp. The lanes are marked with two white lines and the words "text walking lane."
Photo: Twitter
The lanes are temporary, but it actually might be a good idea. Instead of textwalkers causing hazards to pedestrians trying to get to work or make their way home unscathed, now they can bump into each other in their own lane of traffic.
"Everyone 'textwalks,'" an Mlab spokesman told Yahoo News. "You probably walk through the streets while texting or sending Whatsapp messages to your friends, and don't really pay attention to your surroundings — only to whatever is happening on your screen."
Antwerp isn't the first to do this. Washington D.C. and Chongqing, China have also introduced text walking lanes.
Even if this is temporary, it's should come as a serious wake-up call to textwalkers.
For goodness sake, look up!