‘Distracted walking’ a road safety risk, insurer warns
But pedestrian advocates take issue with State Farm poll, police safety campaign as ‘victim blaming,’ while police counter that all groups that use roads must take responsibility.

TheStar.com
Nov. 1, 2016
Peter Goffin

You see it on the streets of Toronto. You may be guilty of it yourself. Pedestrians crossing busy avenues with their gazes screwed to their phones, texting or picking their next song.

In a new study from State Farm Canada insurance company, around 40 per cent of Canadians admitted to texting as they walk. About 25 per cent said they always or often walk with their headphones on.

“We live on our phones these days and people tend to lose sight of where they are sometimes when they’re on their phone,” said State Farm spokesperson John Bordignon.

Toronto police say there were 1,165 vehicle-on-pedestrian collisions from January through August. So far 35 pedestrians have been killed this year, compared with 30 at this point last year.

November, when the clocks go back an hour and evening commutes get darker, is the worst month of the year for collisions involving pedestrians, said Const. Clint Stibbe, of Toronto Police Traffic Services.

Ontario’s chief coroner found, in 2010, that pedestrians were more likely to be killed in traffic if they were using electronic devices, and suggested that about 20 per cent of pedestrians killed in collisions may have been distracted.

On Tuesday morning, Toronto Police and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation launched “Stay Alert, Be Seen,” a pedestrian safety campaign to “encourage drivers and pedestrians to stay focused and remain visible while using the roads.”

Maureen Coyle, of pedestrian advocacy group Walk Toronto, said the focus on “distracted walking” by the police, State Farm and others is a “red herring” that lets drivers off the hook for road safety.

“It is (irrelevant) where someone texts,” Coyle said. “I think we’re getting into some very dangerous territory when we’re getting into prescribing the use of cell phones . . . by somebody who’s not operating a vehicle, because that’s where the responsibility rests.”

“It is entirely victim blaming,” Coyle said.

“It feeds the notion that pedestrians are responsible . . . when a car collides with them. There’s something fundamentally wrong with that.”

Coyle expressed distrust of State Farm’s study, which, she said, could be biased against pedestrians because the company insures drivers.

In 2015 Toronto police said “recent trends” indicated that pedestrians are found at fault in about half of all fatal vehicle-on-pedestrian collisions in the city.

Stibbe, the Toronto Police Traffic Services spokesperson, said the responsibility for keeping roads safe is shared by all.

“Distracted walking isn’t the issue; errors by all road-using groups is,” Stibbe said. “All road users need to be aware . . . and make adjustments to how they interact with each other to make their commute a safe one.”