Distracted walking doesn’t present the same problem as distracted driving

While accident statistics reflect the impact of distracted driving caused by using a mobile device, at walking speed, a built-in sense of self-preservation has the chance to operate even if a pedestrian is preoccupied, Toronto critical injury lawyer Patrick Brown tells Global News.

As the article notes, a driver being ‘inattentive’ can mean any number of things, including fiddling with the radio or eating breakfast, but the only factor that has changed in the last generation is the use of mobile devices.

“Not surprisingly, the rise of mobile devices shows up in accident statistics. In Ontario, more and more drivers every year who are hurt or killed in collisions are reported to have been ‘inattentive’ at the time of the collision,” says the article.

Mobile device use

As Brown, a partner with McLeish Orlando LLP, tells Global News: “It absolutely has to do with mobile devices inside vehicles and people using them when they’re driving.

“In my line of work, I do believe that there’s a definitive increase because of that.”

As Global News reports, collisions in Toronto where a pedestrian was labelled as inattentive have fallen in the last decade, according to city data, while only 13 per cent of pedestrians hit in Toronto were considered to be inattentive for any reason.

“The difficulty is, with cars, what they represent, based on their speed, their size, their weight,” Brown says. “If you are handling a weapon, you handle it with care. You can’t have distractions, you can’t have multitasking — you’ve got to have one hundred per cent of your cognitive ability.”

Recent experiment

As the article notes, a recent experiment by the University of Bath in England asked participants to text while they walked through an obstacle course. The study found that people naturally slowed down and didn’t trip or hit an obstacle.

At a pedestrian speed, explains Brown, a normal sense of self-preservation has a chance to operate, even if walking doesn’t have your full attention.

“We know that there’s an inherent self-deterrence built into our system, that if I step off that curb, there is a likelihood that I will be either very seriously injured or killed. From a very young age we have a built-in deterrent system of self-preservation that exists with all of us,” says Brown.