Driven to Distraction - Pedestrians, Too, Are Distracted by Cellphones - Series - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and text.

But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking — distracted walking — which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.

Driven to Distraction - Pedestrians, Too, Are Distracted by Cellphones - Series - NYTimes.com