Texting Pedestrians Being Ticketed In New Jersey

If you want a surefire way to receive an $85 ticket in New Jersey why not trying texting while you walk. Police officers in NJ are ticketing “texting pedestrians” as part of a new initiative created by city officials that they hope will stop accidental deaths and keep the streets safer for other pedestrians.

Officers are handing out $85 jaywalking tickets and they have managed to write up 117 people to date.

According to the chief of the Fort Lee police department:

“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going, and they are not aware.”

Such a big distraction in fact that three people have already been killed this year after walking out into traffic while texting on their phones without any care for their own safety or the safety of those people around them.

The city recently proclaimed texting pedestrians to be “dangerous walkers” and in March the local police department began circulating brochures to residents in order to explain the next texting policy.

According to ABC News, a pair of processors at New York university performed a study in which they found that texting pedestrians are 60% more likely to be clueless about their surrounding environment than non-texting walkers and therefore are more likely to walk right into danger, possibly leading to death as was the case for three people this year.

One resident who doesn’t agree with the new law and accompanying fine scoffed:

“When I walk I still look around. I’m not, like, constantly looking down the whole time.”

And not all drunk drivers crash into cars and trees and people but that still doesn’t make it okay.

As someone who has been bumped into a few hundred times by people in the city who can’t be bothered to look up from their phones I have to applaud city officials in New Jersey.