Traffic lights come to pavement for smartphone addicted pedestrians

Because it’s almost impossible to make people take their eyes off their smartphones, the administrations across the globe have found a new way to ensure that smartphone-addicted pedestrians don’t pay the price with their lives for their addiction.

From Augsburg in Southern Germany to Bodegraven in Netherlands to Biobio in Chile, many cities are resorting to ground traffic lights which flash green or red every time pedestrians try to cross the road with their eyes glued to their phones.

In Biobio region in Chile, the administration has installed ground lights to warn pedestrians who cannot take their eyes off their smartphones. Bodegraven, a town in the Netherlands, has also installed LED light strips on the sidewalk that synchronize with traffic signals and turn red or green at pedestrian crossings so that people can’t miss them even if their eyes are cast down toward their smartphone screens.

Similarly, last year, the southern German city of Augsburg introduced traffic lights that look similar to cats eye road markers, but are flat on the ground and flash red when a tram is approaching.

These aren’t the only places that are experimenting with new measures to ensure people’s safety. Chongqing in China installed a 165-foot stretch of pavement with a two lane structure in 2014: one lane for people using their smartphones, the other for normal walkers.

But no matter how much of technology we can bring to the traffic signals, what will work the best is your own sense of safety. Dependency on technology is just one alternative, how about taking your eyes off your smart phone every once in a while especially when you are crossing a road. At the end it is your life we are talking about!

Innovations like these are definitely a boon for people on the go. Kudos to the innovators!