Death By Cell

It was not a Merry Christmas/Happy New Year for a cell phone addict this year. A 33-year-old man named Joshua M. Burwell was so engrossed and  distracted by by his cell phone that he fell 60 feet to his death at San Diego's Sunset Cliffs. Yep! he was walking near a cliff an had one of those "important" texts. Suddenly he walked off the cliff to his death.  It's not an unusual story either. I often dodge pedestrians who walk, heads down, thumbs punching their cell phones, oblivious to my car as they walk aimlessly into the path of my vehicle.

So far I have managed to not hit any of them, but only because of extra cautious driving whenever I am near an intersection. Cell phone addicts really do lose awareness of where they are when playing with their phones. Pedestrian cell phone users are a big problem now for auto drivers. Statistics show that  pedestrian is hit by a car or truck every seven minutes. (More than a quarter of all car crashes in America are are also caused by cell phone use,  according to a study by the Nation Safety Council).

The percentage of pedestrians killed while using cell phones rose from less than 1 percent in 2004 to more than 3.5 percent in 2010, according to a study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University. And an unbelievable 40 percent of U.S. teens have been hit or nearly hit by a passing car, motorcycle, or bike. I am n ot kidding. The cell phone is becoming a weapon of death.

The problem with this wave of tragic deaths and dangers from cell phone fanaticism is that little can be done to stop it. No matter how many warnings are given to cell addicts they seem to pass through their brains without much effect. Some cities here have passed "distracted walking laws" in which a person who walks carelessly because of some distraction, most often from using a cell phone, is given a walking ticket b violation. It has had no effect in making cell users more aware of their surroundings. Perhaps judges of distracted walking cases should order the violator surrender use of his or her cell phone for a period of time to make sure they offender understands that behaving stupidly while walking public streets can actually lead to death.

The greater question for society to ask itself is... Why do so many people live so much of their lives inside an electronic device that offers so little of what is real life?