Updated  13th October  2024

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How many accidents are caused by being on your phone? (please share)

9% of distracted driving injury crashes, or about 29,999 accidents in total. 9% of all police-reported distraction-affected crashes, or about 50,098 accidents in total.3 Jan 2023

In the last 7 years, accidents caused by smartphones have doubled. In the US, one pedestrian is killed every 2 hours. Day and night. The chances of being ..

You are 4 times more likely to be in a crash if you use your phone. Your reaction times are 2 times slower if you text and drive using a hands-free phone than if you drink drive, and this increases to three times if you use a handheld phone.

How many people look at their phone while walking?

Researchers observed 814 pedestrians (20%) using a portable device while walking, with headphone use and texting/interacting with a device (38% and 37% respectively) the most prominent behaviours.20 Oct 202

Is it safe to walk with your phone?

Don't walk, talk and text. If you have to talk or text, move to the side of the walkway out of the way of others. Never cross or walk in the street while using an electronic device. Do not walk with headphones in your ears.

Why do people walk when on the phone?

Many people pace while talking on the phone, and psychologists say this is to make up for the lack of body language and non-verbal cues that normally happen in face-to-face conversations.2 Feb 2023

Is it safe to sleep close to your phone?

Is it bad to sleep with your phone beside you? Yes, usually speaking, it's not a good idea to sleep with your phone nearby. Sleep quality may suffer if you keep your phone close to your head while trying to slumber because it emits electromagnetic radiation.

Pedestrians who attempt to cross roads with their eyes glued to their smartphones are more likely to be involved in accidents or near misses, a study suggests.

Texting or internet browsing while walking is associated with higher rates of near misses and failure to look left and right before crossing a road, Canadian researchers say.

Safety was compromised more when pedestrians were texting, as opposed to listening to music or talking on the phone, their meta-analysis found.

The authors write: “Given the ubiquity of smartphones, social media, apps, digital video and streaming music, which has infiltrated most aspects of daily life, distracted walking and street cross will be a road safety issue for the foreseeable future.”

The researchers, from the University of Calgary, pooled data from 14 experimental studies on the potential road safety impact of hand-held and hands-free smartphone activities, and reviewed a further eight.

They looked at how long it took 808 children and adults to start walking, begin and complete crossing a road, whether they looked left or right and collisions and close calls with other pedestrians and vehicles.

The studies typically involved a simulation with a curb-like platform and graphics computer with a projection system.

Texting was found to be the potentially most harmful behaviour, with significantly lower rates of looking left and right before or while crossing the road.

This was also linked to “moderately increased” rates of collisions and close calls with other road users.

The authors write: “As expected, texting or browsing had the most detrimental effects on hits and close calls and looking left and right.

“Texting requires a pedestrian to repeatedly divert their eyes away from the walking environment and traffic, towards the screen of the phone, to type and read messages.

“Browsing requires repeated device interactions and information scanning.

“If pedestrians do not look left and right when crossing a street, detection of vehicles likely also decreases.

“The extent to which reductions in head turning necessarily translate into greater real world crash risk, however, is still largely unknown.”

Listening to music was not associated with any heightened risk of potentially harmful pedestrian behaviours.

Talking on the phone was associated with a small increase in the time taken to start crossing the road and slightly more missed opportunities to cross the road safely.

The distraction levels of the pedestrians in the further eight studies ranged from 12 to 45%, the authors observed.

Other factors influencing this included gender, time of day, whether they were crossing alone or in a group and their walking speed.

The authors caution that much of the data is experimental and varying in quality, which makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions.

The validity of the findings also need to be confirmed in actual traffic environments, but putting pedestrians into situations with potential collisions poses ethical questions.

Proposed solutions to combat pedestrian distraction include e-walking lanes, traffic tickets and enforcement, wrapping poles with padding, having mobile phones alarm when at crossings, the authors summarise.

The paper is published in the journal Injury Prevention.

Woman Back to Bridge from The Times

  A1 helping Israeli Hospitals from The Times  May 2023

Lucy Dee Hy''d from Daf Hashavuah May 2023

Digital Dementia from The Times May 2023

from The Times Wednesday 19th April 2023

Sir, Rishi Sunak says innumeracy should be “socially unacceptable”. In 1971-72, at 18, I wasted nine months trying to obtain a maths O-level, which was required before I could take up an open scholarship that I had been awarded by a Cambridge college. I passed on my ninth attempt. Subsequently, and always mathematically incapable, I obtained a Cambridge PhD and a research fellowship in London, acted as a perfectly sensible trustee of assets exceeding £170 million, and ended my working life as a fellow of All Souls. In half a century the worst disadvantage of my numbers fog has come at the bridge table: opponents notice that I have to use my fingers to count points if I have an opening bid. Talk of shaming innumeracy is narrow-minded tosh.
Richard Davenport-Hines
Ardèche, France

Quote from The Ticket Collector from Belarus

by Mike Anderson and Neil Hanson

Murray's husband had initially questioned whether the war crimes investigation and the trial were really worth the millions being spent on them. Having been introduced to some of  the witnesses one evening, as they drove home, he said “You were absolutely right, it's well worth doing,' and for Murray herself, the case was `life-changing'. There is an often-quoted remark first attributed to Stalin: 'The death of a one person is a tragedy, but the death of a million is just a statistic. Jiill  Murray's experience seems to bear this out, as she said “people don't associate the Holocaust with real human beings” but meeting those individual survivors and witnesses really  brought the human impact home to her.

Jealousy and Greed

There was a greedy man and a  jealous man. They were brought  before the king, who offered to give  them whatever they wished for. However, there was one important caveat. Whoever chose first would receive what he asked for, but the one would receive double. As can be imagined, this put each of them in a very difficult position. The greedy man did not want to go first because he knew that by waiting, he could get much more. The jealous man did not want to go first either, because he knew he could not possibly cope with the other fellow having double.

 After much hesitation from both of them, the jealous man finally stepped forward. 'Your Majesty', he said, 'my request is that you cut out one of my eyes'.

Don't Jump to Conclusions

Very Brave Muslim leader in Australia - must see video

Watch Andrew Neill and his eloquence on THIS WEEK on Thursday 23rd March 2017

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