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Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#121

Post by gav »

isoskeles wrote: post #77
zachware wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite things about NYC is the built-in etiquette of "pulling over" when you need to putz with your phone. You could always tell who didn't live there by who stopped flat on the street and blocked traffic.

I live in the Bay Area and do that, but it definitely seems like a lot of people don’t here. Usually I try to stay parallel to other physical barriers like mailboxes, trees, garbage cans, etc. so there is zero possibility I’m in the way of a normal walking path.

There’s a Nathan Pyle comic with this advice: https://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/business_insid...

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#122

Post by hombre_fatal »

mFixman wrote: post #120
jrockway wrote: post #39

My dream is that one day, everyone will see the imaginary lines down the sidewalk that I do. Keep to the right, just like you're driving, and even someone texting while walking won't run into. Sadly, these lines are imaginary and while people tend to keep right, don't take it very seriously. A deeper issue is how much of the space between buildings is dedicated to private vehicles. When the sidewalk is 6 feet wide an…

This whole "in a perfect world everyone would walk just like me" is just an attempt to justify the constant loss of walking space to cars since the 1950s. My dream is that one day pedestrianised spaces would be large enough to allow everyone to use it without compromises.

There is no walking area large enough to spare you from being mindful of others.

Demanding common courtesy from others in shared spaces isn't an attempt to justify anything, much less our car culture.

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#123

Post by osdiab »

JoshTko wrote: post #50

Japan needs to focus on real problems such as banning smoking everywhere instead of use of phones.

Tokyo already passed and is enforcing an ordinance that banks smoking in all restaurants, cafes and bars. It’s great! There are some straggler restaurants not complying with it though, having just been in place since April.

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#124

Post by fiblye »

avar wrote: post #76
fiblye wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve lived in some really crappy places in the US, but the only place I’ve often seen and experienced people committing obvious crimes in broad daylight was Europe. It was pretty weird having someone struggle to unzip my backpack while walking down the street. I bound the zippers with a lock and they couldn’t get in, but I guess they didn’t notice because they really fought to get it open. Seeing obvious pickpockets…

I live in one of those places (Amsterdam). It's because this isn't a practical problem for anyone living there, so why should we care to spend our tax money and police attention on it instead of crime we ourselves are affected by? Pick-pocketing in any of the places mentioned upthread isn't some general city-wide or societal problem. It's narrowly isolated to a few tourist-trap neighborhoods, and even there only then…

>If you look at actual statistics on crime petty theft isn't some rampant issue in these societies.

How do you gather actual statistics when the locals don't pay attention or care, police see it but take no action, and some of the main victims (tourists) are gone in a few days and don't have the time or language skills to make a report?

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#125

Post by perl4ever »

fzeroracer wrote: post #102
Grue3 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drunk driving had to be banned because it's just too dangerous. It had to be eradicated at all costs even despite many people violating this law. On the other hand there's no indication that texting while walking is more dangerous than walking while drunk. Walking is a low-risk activity which doesn't require a license and people routinely do it while being under an influence.

I mean sure, but that wasn't your original argument. Your original argument was that if it affects 12% of people, then it's a bad law. We've now demonstrated that reducing things down like that doesn't work. There's an argument to be made that texting while walking can be dangerous because if you're sharing a small space with cyclists or others then you're potentially leaving yourself open to colliding with them. And…

The presumption is that it's a bad law, because laws that affect a large percentage of the population are often unenforceable.

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#126

Post by zrobotics »

stefan_ wrote: post #111
zrobotics wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to have a very strong discussion with an employee yesterday, as I almost ran him over with a forklift. He was walking back from break, head buried in his phone. I don't care if he spends his break time on his phone, and truth be told I don't even care if he sends the occasional text while working. However, I definitely have a problem with walking around a hazardous warehouse environment and not looking as what…

Thankfully it's now 2020 and we've long since learned that putting "be vigilant" in the employee handbook doesn't do anything, just like "don't crash the plane" stickers on an instrument display don't do anything to stop plane crashes. Even OSHA, the lowest common denominator, requires you to clearly delineate pedestrian travel paths. Physical separation is highly recommended. What doesn't fucking help, and hasn't si…

That is also why I ask all forklift operators to watch where they are going. Not to be flippant, but 'it takes two to tango', and if I had hit him I would have been almost entirely at fault.

However, I don't think I'm getting 19th century in thinking someone walking through an active warehouse should be watching their surroundings. This is also an area where people pick stock off of rolling staircases, it isn't out of the realm of possibility to have a 45lb case of product be dropped off a rack.

I should have mentioned in the original comment, it isn't just the handbook, we stress during training that this is a potentially hazardous area, and that you need to be aware of your surroundings. My goal isn't to avoid insurance/workman's comp claims; my goal is for everyone to leave at day's end safely & without injury. I realize there is no such thing as legislating safety, which is why we immediately point out any unsafe behaviors. There are unfortunately just some workplaces that by their very nature are hazardous. I spend ~40% of my time in an office environment, and the hazards there are tripping or paper cuts. However, for the warehouse I manage, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect employees to be aware of their surroundings. This is a workplace where there is moving equipment, blind corners, people on ladders, and the possibility of falling objects. The bare minimum in this situation is to look where you are going.

We have pedestrian travel paths, and he wasn't even close to one. He was so engrossed in whatever he was watching on his phone that he had wandered 60' away from where he even should have been to get back to his station. He was paying so little attention he was actively walking away from his destination.

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#128

Post by bamboozled »

kairumination0 wrote: post #118
bamboozled wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people in Japan don't drive so they don't really think about "sides" like people who come from car cultures do.

This. As a driver and a long-term resident in Tokyo, I try to stay to the left as a pedestrian, but I estimate the odds of the other party doing the same are 50/50.

Yeah, and you also see people being paid to direct the flow of human traffic at the super busy stations.

Re: Yamato becomes Japan's first city to 'ban' use of phones while walking

#129

Post by kwhitefoot »

Barrin92 wrote: post #90
kwhitefoot wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden made it an offence to use a mobile while driving and then rescinded it when they discovered that the law made no difference to the accident rate.

pretty difficult to know how high the compliance actually was. One of the first articles I could find was that the police found it difficult to apply. So likely less of an issue of it not being dangerous but rather hard to enforce.

My impression was that analysis of the accident statistics failed to reveal any effect. Of course that doesn't mean that there wasn't one but it does suggest that it was too small to be useful.
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