Distracted Walking, Cycling, and Driving

[KevinL]

I don't se why she didn't have her foot firmly on the brake if doing something as involved as attending a child. Very poor habit.

[Rainrider22]

no it isn't for the purpose of Criminal Driving offences and Rule of the road under the Ontario Highway traffic act. A bicycle is a vehicle but not a motor vehicle.... big difference.  You can ride a bicycle if you are a suspended driver which is a vehicle, not a motor vehicle.  A garden tractor is a motor vehicle as an example, you cant operate it even on private property if you are suspended for a criminal code violation...

Are you sure about that? It wouldn’t make sense if true. You don’t need a license to operate a garden tractor on private property (right?), so why would it be a problem if your license was suspended? Now, I’m guessing that most employers for whom you might operate a garden tractor will require a (presumably non-suspended) license, but that is separate from the law.

if you are suspeneded for a criminal code offence it is ilegal to operate any motor vehcile anywhere  very sure about it

[danbrotherston]

It's an opinion backed up by physics, statistics, and even your anecdote.  Stats show walking injuries, unlike vehicle collisions, have not gone up with mobile phone use. Physics dictates I am more able to maintain situational awareness because the flow of information is much slower, and physics also dictates the possibility of harm is vastly lower. As for your anecdote, what happened when the person walked into you, they were embarrassed, and you were annoyed, as opposed to you being hospitalized or worse, if they were in a car.

I don't know how "walking injuries" are counted.

But certainly one of the key risks of distracted walking is that of a pedestrian-motor vehicle collision. A person who is not aware of his or her surroundings may walk into the way of an approaching motor vehicle. Yes, it's only injuring the pedestrian, but that's still an injury, or worse.

They are definitely harder to study than vehicle injuries which are relatively well documented.  But various studies have investigated.

Of course, MVC injuries related to distracted pedestrians are easy to study and it's very clear those have not risen as a result of distracted walking.  The main reason is even a distracted pedestrian will be aware they are stepping off a curb. And distracted or not, most peds with the right of way don't look for or expect to get run over. This is where most collisions occur.

Interesting, the most notable distracted walking ban is in Honolulu, and the politicians who voted for it cited the high number of pedestrians hit while they have the right of way in a crosswalk.  Their argument was, those peds must be distracted, who cares about the drivers who hit a ped with the right of way.

It is extremely clear the issue of distracted walking is moral panic and nothing more.  Or worse, it's moral panic being used to distract away from real issues of dangerous driving.

[Rainrider22]

I don't know how "walking injuries" are counted.

But certainly one of the key risks of distracted walking is that of a pedestrian-motor vehicle collision. A person who is not aware of his or her surroundings may walk into the way of an approaching motor vehicle. Yes, it's only injuring the pedestrian, but that's still an injury, or worse.

They are definitely harder to study than vehicle injuries which are relatively well documented.  But various studies have investigated.

Of course, MVC injuries related to distracted pedestrians are easy to study and it's very clear those have not risen as a result of distracted walking.  The main reason is even a distracted pedestrian will be aware they are stepping off a curb.  And distracted or not, most peds with the right of way don't look for or expect to get run over.  This is where most collisions occur.

Interesting, the most notable distracted walking ban is in Honolulu, and the politicians who voted for it cited the high number of pedestrians hit while they have the right of way in a crosswalk.  Their argument was, those peds must be distracted, who cares about the drivers who hit a ped with the right of way.

It is extremely clear the issue of distracted walking is moral panic and nothing more.  Or worse, it's moral panic being used to distract away from real issues of dangerous driving.

There doesn't need to be laws for distracted walking. The law of evolution will take care of it

[ijmorlan]

Are you sure about that? It wouldn’t make sense if true. You don’t need a license to operate a garden tractor on private property (right?), so why would it be a problem if your license was suspended? Now, I’m guessing that most employers for whom you might operate a garden tractor will require a (presumably non-suspended) license, but that is separate from the law.

if you are suspeneded for a criminal code offence it is ilegal to operate any motor vehcile anywhere  very sure about it

Cite? Why would the law say anything at all about operating a motor vehicle on private property?

[Rainrider22]

if you are suspeneded for a criminal code offence it is ilegal to operate any motor vehcile anywhere  very sure about it

Cite? Why would the law say anything at all about operating a motor vehicle on private property?

s.259...
Operation while disqualified
(4) Every offender who operates a motor vehicle, vessel or aircraft or any railway equipment in Canada while disqualified from doing so, other than an offender who is registered in an alcohol ignition interlock device program established under the law of the province in which the offender resides and who complies with the conditions of the program,
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction

This is for a suspension due to criminal activity. ie. impaired driving. The law is clear in the specific elements that operating "anywhere". Now it is not likely to happen if you are on your own property. But. The act of driving in a parking lot would be a breach. Criminal Code defenition of motorvehicle includes any vehicle other than muscular powered.   If you want to discuss further we can go off line. Not sure anyone wants to see this going on and on. 

[ijmorlan]

Cite? Why would the law say anything at all about operating a motor vehicle on private property?

s.259...
Operation while disqualified
(4) Every offender who operates a motor vehicle, vessel or aircraft or any railway equipment in Canada while disqualified from doing so, other than an offender who is registered in an alcohol ignition interlock device program established under the law of the province in which the offender resides and who complies with the conditions of the program,
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction

This is for a suspension due to criminal activity. ie. impaired driving. The law is clear in the specific elements that operating "anywhere". Now it is not likely to happen if you are on your own property. But. The act of driving in a parking lot would be a breach. Criminal Code defenition of motorvehicle includes any vehicle other than muscular powered.   If you want to discuss further we can go off line. Not sure anyone wants to see this going on and on. 

Thanks for digging that up. Just to be clear, this is part of the law on driving and driving licenses? It took me a bit of thinking and in an ideal world I would like to see a few more related extracts but the above answers the most important aspect of my question. In particular, it mentions non-motor-vehicle transportation explicitly, which normally I assume one can operate without a driver’s license (although with a much more stringent other licensing regime in the case of aircraft, and extensive training whenever it is part of employment). Also, on thinking about it, it makes sense that somebody who has proven to be grossly irresponsible on the roads should be restricted from doing certain related things off-road that we normally allow people to do without a license.

[tomh009]

Of course, MVC injuries related to distracted pedestrians are easy to study and it's very clear those have not risen as a result of distracted walking.

Do you have some links to those studies? While I haven't seen "moral panic" (or maybe I just don't know what that looks like) it seems to me that distracted walking does increase risk.

[danbrotherston]

Of course, MVC injuries related to distracted pedestrians are easy to study and it's very clear those have not risen as a result of distracted walking.

Do you have some links to those studies? While I haven't seen "moral panic" (or maybe I just don't know what that looks like) it seems to me that distracted walking does increase risk.

Here's a streets blog article citing our own Mike Boos' numbers from our local region. 

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/11/03/d...l-problem/

Here's a curbed article citing a study showing that distracted walking is actually pretty rare.

https://www.curbed.com/platform/amp/2018...-crosswalk

Here's a study showing that distracted and inattentive pedestrians make cross the road at speeds similar to attentive walkers, and that context not distraction is the dominant factor in errors and speed crossing.

https://transfersmagazine.org/walking-on...ic-safety/

Several things are clear to me. 

Let's break it down into two parts:

Walking distracted on a sidewalk or trail, a distracted ped can easily walk on the right side and incur no extra danger.  Of course, a ped, unlike a driver, can know when they are about to enter a conflict zone with cars.

If a ped continues to be distracted during the crossing I'm sure there is some more danger, but no more than a ped who doesn't look when they cross anyway, which we all should in case there is a driver who is not but given the peds hit by drivers in intersections, certainly not everyone does (incidentally, one reason why roundabouts are safer is that they force people to pay more attention than to just a light).

And certainly, no distracted ped is more impaired  than a blind or ped with other impairments who should be able to safely cross the roads .

That's my interpretation.

Given the limit risk and limited scale (again, studies showed very few peds actually crossed distracted) of the risk, and the number of news articles and politicians pushing policies which have basically no basis in real harm observed and often to the exclusion of real safety policies (just see the policies that Yvan Baker pushed to implement in Etobicoke where there are real serious road safety issues) makes me feel this rises to the level of moral panic.

[ijmorlan]

And certainly, no distracted ped is more impaired  than a blind or ped with other impairments who should be able to safely cross the roads .

I mostly agree with everything you say, with the exception of this statement. Depending on the nature of the distraction, it can be all-consuming, taking up all of the person’s awareness, meaning that in effect they aren’t receiving any input from anything around them. By contrast, I think most blind people who have practiced are extremely aware of their non-seeing sensory inputs, primarily hearing, and are probably amazingly aware of what is going on around them.

But, similar to what you are saying, none of that means we need “impaired walking” laws. The laws we are talking about are supposed to be in response to behaviour that is dangerous to others; it is easy to drive in a way that is dangerous to other drivers and to nearby non-drivers but much more difficult to walk in a way that poses a significant danger to others. Beating up on “distracted” pedestrians through the legal system is in practice mostly just another way of bullying a less privileged group.

[tomh009]

I mostly agree with everything you say, with the exception of this statement. Depending on the nature of the distraction, it can be all-consuming, taking up all of the person’s awareness, meaning that in effect they aren’t receiving any input from anything around them. By contrast, I think most blind people who have practiced are extremely aware of their non-seeing sensory inputs, primarily hearing, and are probably amazingly aware of what is going on around them.

But, similar to what you are saying, none of that means we need “impaired walking” laws. The laws we are talking about are supposed to be in response to behaviour that is dangerous to others; it is easy to drive in a way that is dangerous to other drivers and to nearby non-drivers but much more difficult to walk in a way that poses a significant danger to others. Beating up on “distracted” pedestrians through the legal system is in practice mostly just another way of bullying a less privileged group.

I never did suggest legislation. What I did claim was that being 100% focused on a smartphone in your hands does increase risk to the pedestrian.

[Coke6pk]

Just because an item has an engine, doesn't make it a "motor vehicle" under the HTA.  Road building machines and Self-Propelled Implements of Husbandry are not Motor Vehicles despite having an engine.  (ie. Speeding only applies to Motor Vehicles... but if you can get your combine to do 140 on the 401, it wouldn't be a speeding offence)

Distracted pedestrians can be a nuisance, but are highly unlikely to kill/seriously injure someone (other than themselves).  Same goes for cyclists.  So even if it was an offence to text while biking, I highly doubt any officer would do enforcement (Unless there was a need for an adjustment of attitude, and the ticket was to make a point)

Coke

[Rainrider22]

Just because an item has an engine, doesn't make it a "motor vehicle" under the HTA.  Road building machines and Self-Propelled Implements of Husbandry are not Motor Vehicles despite having an engine.  (ie. Speeding only applies to Motor Vehicles... but if you can get your combine to do 140 on the 401, it wouldn't be a speeding offence)

Distracted pedestrians can be a nuisance, but are highly unlikely to kill/seriously injure someone (other than themselves).  Same goes for cyclists.  So even if it was an offence to text while biking, I highly doubt any officer would do enforcement (Unless there was a need for an adjustment of attitude, and the ticket was to make a point)

Coke

Under the criminal code of Canada all the vehicles you described are motor vehicles. And if you have a criminal code suspension operating a motor vehicle under criminal Code definition. Your are breaching. There are definitions for Ontario Highway Act and definitions for Criminal Code.

[danbrotherston]

....

Distracted pedestrians can be a nuisance, but are highly unlikely to kill/seriously injure someone (other than themselves).  Same goes for cyclists.  So even if it was an offence to text while biking, I highly doubt any officer would do enforcement (Unless there was a need for an adjustment of attitude, and the ticket was to make a point)

Coke

This is true today, and in Kitchener, but that's not to say that this is true everywhere and always.

There are many cities, including iconic places like NYC, SF, or Austin, where police have strong crackdowns on cyclists or pedestrians for minor offenses (like not putting your foot down at a stop sign or starting to walk during the countdown but completing your crossing before the yellow), while ignoring serious and harmful offenses by motor vehicle drivers.  These are real examples happening today.  Worse, it can be used as an excuse to police minorities, i.e., I won't get ticketed for walking and texting because I'm a white male, someone who's wearing a hoodie and of the wrong complexion might not be so lucky.  We've seen this more broadly in "broken window policing" in NYC, and less seriously, carding, in places as close as Toronto.

This is why this type of thing does concern me, when we talk about making things illegal like riding without a helmet or texting and walking, I'm sure some people have good intentions, but the result is often extremely harmful--even if we make it unofficially legal.