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Survey deems distracted walking serious issue

WASHINGTON - More than 2,000 U.S. adults nationally and 4,000 adults in select
urban areas were surveyed in a 2016 National Safety Council (NSC) research study about
distracted walking. Americans are overly confident in their ability to multitask, and 48 percent of
respondents said they simply just dont think about it. In addition, 500 people in eight markets
were surveyed. Those markets include New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago,
Phoenix, Seattle, Philadelphia and Atlanta.
Residents in New York City made up 86 percent of those most likely to view distracted
walking as a serious issue, as well as more likely to admit to walking distracted than residents in
the other cities surveyed. Houston made up the 40 percent of residents to be the least likely to
view distracted walking as dangerous.
Today, the dangers of the digital dead-walker are growing with more and more
pedestrians falling down stairs, tripping over curbs, bumping into other walkers or stepping into
traffic, causing a rising number of injuries-from scraped and bruises to sprains and fractures,
said Reed Fitzgerald, an orthopedic surgeon and NSC spokesperson.
Of those surveyed, four out of ten Americans recalled a time they witnessed a distracted
walking incident, while 26 percent of them said they were in the incident themselves. According
to the research, women ages 55 and over are the most likely to suffer serious injuries. Millennials
ages 18-34 are the least likely to be injured.
The perceptions of distracted walking vary by generation. Half of millenials also view
distracted walking as embarrassing -- in a funny way. Of the total people surveyed, 46 percent
said its just as much dangerous as it is embarrassing in a silly way.
Between 2004 and 2010, emergency departments saw double the amount of pedestrians
injured while on their cell phones, according to a 2013 study appearing in the Accident Injury
and Prevention Journal. Almost half of the respondents in the NSC survey revealed that they
simply dont realize when theyre walking distracted.
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 The most common distracted walking behavior is having active conversations with
another person they are walking next to, as 75 percent of respondents admitted to
usually/always or sometimes engaging in this behavior.

Numbers from the survey

90 percent say they see walkers talking on the phone (37 percent admit to doing so
themselves)
88 percent are engaging in conversation (75 percent themselves)
88 percent are listening to music (34 percent themselves)
85 percent are using a smartphone (28 percent themselves)
64 percent are generally zoning out, or not focused on walking (38 percent themselves)

The National Safety Council eliminates preventable deaths at work, in homes and communities,
and on the road through leadership, research, education and advocacy.

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