I encountered a terrifying scene while walking across campus the other day. I was crossing Highland Road, and I saw at least four police cars, a firetruck and two ambulances converged at the intersection of Highland and South Campus Drive. A quick call to the Reveille newsroom to see what was going on informed me my worst fear had happened again: someone was hit by a car.
The details of this particular accident are unknown to me, but I do not really need to know them. A Reveille reporter tried to find out just how many students have been hit on campus so far and was told statistics would take days to compile. I don’t need to know any LSU statistics though, because the very fact these statistics exist is enough to upset me.
I was discussing with a friend just how appalled I was by what had happened the other day and what has happened before. We both were trying to figure out why it kept happening. Many factors can contribute to these types of accidents, such as driver error and poor weather conditions. But eventually we came onto a subject that has become more and more of a problem in recent years: cell phone usage.
Again, I do not know the reasons why someone got hit on campus the other day, but while someone using a cell phone may not have caused that accident, plenty of proof exists that they do cause accidents.
According to a Harvard study, 2,600 people are killed and 330,000 people are injured in cell-phone-related car accidents a year. Cell phones cost drivers about $43 billion a year in medical bills associated with accidents. And because it is not likely Louisana lawmakers will ban the use of cell phones while driving like other states such as New York have, drivers in Louisiana must be aware of the statistics so they do not become one.
I am not calling for a ban of cell phones in cars, however. In fact I don’t really think they should be banned at all. Everything from a fly buzzing around in the front seat to a baby crying in the back seat is a distraction to a driver. Being a safe driver is about handling distractions. If we are going to ban cell phones, then we ought to ban babies and flies too, don’t you think?
No, I am writing not about drivers being distracted, but rather, about pedestrians being distracted. How many times have you seen someone dart out onto the road because they were talking to someone on a cell phone and did not stop to check to see if anyone was coming?
I admit to doing it myself on more than one occasion. Sometimes I will be talking to someone on my cell, and if I come to a road, I just check for those white lines and then go. Sure, cars are supposed to stop when a pedestrian is in a crosswalk, but not everyone has amazing reaction time. If you immediately dart out in front of a car moving quickly, nothing guarantees they won’t hit you just because you’re standing on white lines.
Almost always the driver of the vehicle is assigned the blame in these kinds of accidents, and while they rightly might be at fault sometimes, I have a feeling a good number of accidents are caused by pedestrians’ carelessness. And it’s not just cell phones distracting pedestrians — just as with drivers, nearly anything can be a distraction for people crossing the road.
So, either we can ban every distraction in the world to make the accidents end, which would be impossible, or we can demand both drivers and pedestrians take responsibility for keeping the roads and crosswalks safe. Instead of there being only defensive drivers, let’s have defensive pedestrians, too.