THEY’RE noisy, get in your way and change direction unpredictably. As if that weren’t enough, pedestrians chatting on a cellphone are also more likely to get knocked down by a bus.
It is well known that people who use their cellphones while driving increase their risk of having an accident, so Jack Nasar of Ohio State University, Columbus, and his colleagues decided to find out whether the same applied to those on foot. They posted observers at three busy road crossings near his campus and asked them to note pedestrians’ risky roadside behaviour and what portable technology they were using.…
