An article titled "New York may ban iPods while crossing street" catches anyone's attention. How can they ban using iPods on the streets of New York City? One man is proposing new legislation that does exactly that. New York State Senator Carl Kruger states that three people have been killed because of being distracted by an iPod or cell phone while crossing the street in his Brooklyn district. People are distracted by talking on a cell phone, changing a song on an iPod, or just listening to music and not being able to hear what is going on around you.
Apparently, "New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine." Blackberrys and video games are included in these gadgets that could be banned. If eReaders become a popular electronic device in the future, could they face the same scrutiny cell phones and iPods are facing? According to the article, "Tech-consuming New Yorkers trudge to work on sidewalks and subways like an army of drones, appearing to talk to themselves on wireless devices or swaying to seemingly silent tunes." Kruger says that he doesn't want to take that away from New Yorkers, he just wants to protect people from walking into speeding traffic and that "it's becoming a nationwide problem." "Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry. This electronic gadgetry is reaching the point where it's becoming not only an endemic but it's creating an atmosphere where we have a major public safety crisis at hand," says Kruger.
I think that this is going a little too far. If people don't want to pay attention to traffic ordinances and walk down the street alert and safe, then why make them? They will have a big problem with people breaking the law. People are attached to their cell phones and ipods these days. New York already took away driving on a cell phone, which many people do not obey, do they really think that it will stop people from walking with a cell phone or listening to an ipod? I don't think so. People just need to pay attention to their surroundings a little bit more and these accidents won't happen. We at RIT know more about this than a lot of people, if we yell "watch out" to someone, it doesn't always mean they can hear us, they may be deaf. So do they propose that the hard of hearing people of New York are banned from crossing the street? No way! According to the article, one of the people who were killed in Brooklyn was screamed at by bystanders yelling "watch out," but the person crossing the street did not hear them.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070207/tc_nm/newyork_ipod_dc