Watch out for those watching their phones.
The rise in cellphone use by pedestrians is causing more than just a few embarrassing moments for people too engaged in their electronics to avoid hitting a parked car or lamppost.
The Agence France-Presse news agency reports the addiction to the phones is responsible for more and more serious accidents, including some deaths — especially at some of the most populated intersections in major cities.
The Tokyo Fire Department reported between 2009 to 2013, 122 people were rushed to hospital after an accident caused by pedestrians using cellphones, the AFP reported. Officials said it could become a bigger part of the injuries that occur among pedestrians.
In places such as the Shibuya train station in Tokyo — famous for being one of the most crowded intersections in the world — officials told the agency they expect more injuries to continue as the nation is becoming more addicted to their gadgets.
Japanese mobile company NTT Docomo estimates a pedestrian’s average field of vision while staring down at a smartphone is just 5% of what our eyes take in normally.
The company made a simulation video of what would occur if 1,500 people were all walking with their heads down and reading their phones.
The video projects there would be 446 collisions, 103 people getting knocked to the ground and maybe, most alarmingly, 21 phones would get dropped.
But the obsession with phones has led to deaths, including a middle-aged man who died in Tokyo recently after accidentally walking onto a railway crossing as he looked at his phone.
The agency also reports the phone addiction is threatening to infringe on the country’s “sense of social harmony,” with people receiving icy stares and other non-courtesies.
A big problem is that the people holding their expensive phones are walking at a much slower pace than other pedestrians and definitely more slowly than bicyclists. That creates a backup in traffic that leads to the collisions.
Some parts of the world are determining it may be easier to change the layout of the sidewalks than users’ phone habits.
A new 164-foot-long stretch of sidewalk was recently designated to mobile phone junkies in the Chinese city of Chongqing.
The move was intended to curb accidents, but officials said the problem is that the people on the phones aren’t bothering to glance at the pavement to discover they have their own lane.
jlandau@nydailynews.com Follow on Twitter @joelzlandau
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