Lampposts on East London’s Brick Lane have today been wrapped up in padding to protect Britain’s clumsy texters.
The renowned capital curry haunt has been highlighted as the most dangerous place for mobile phone users to be texting with Londoners frequently picking up injuries ranging from bruises to fractured bones.
Whether it be the perils of walking into a lamppost while not keeping your eyes on the road or careering into a bin after a couple of drinks at a local drinking establishment, the street apparently poses many menaces to dozy phone users.
And in order to stem the flow of ailments anything potentially harmful is being wrapped in cotton wool, or at least brightly coloured padding.
Brick Lane has now become the first ‘Safe Text’ street in the UK, with rugby post-like cushioning put around the 10 of the road’s higher-than-average number of lampposts.
If the trial proves a success then other capital danger-zones, including Charing Cross Road, Old Bond Street, Oxford Street and Church Street, Stoke Newington, will also be set for some extra padding.
According to a survey of 1055 Britons by text information service 118118, which is overseeing the pilot scheme alongside public space charity Living Streets, one in ten Britons has injured themselves while walking and texting in the last 12 months.
Nearly half (44%) of those asked said they would be happy to see protective pads put on lampposts, and one in four Britons (27%) would support a ‘Mobile Motorway’
Oh. My. Gawd. Who is supposed to *pay* for that crap?!? Not to mention, if they’re too stupid to watch where they’re walking, then they deserve to walk into crap! Maybe they’ll eventually learn their lesson, and, um, STOP TEXTING WHILE THEY’RE WALKING!!! Ugh, I am so fed up with people wanting other people to take care of them! Erk.
I would much prefer to just leave things as they were. If someone is stupid enough to walk into a lamppost while texting they obviously aren’t paying attention to where they are going and deserve to get a cracked skull. Any injuries they get should serve as a wake up call. Any of them looking for sympathy can look in the dictionary between sh*t and syphilis.
However being human nature to blame anyone or anything but themselves, they seem to have raised enough of a stink that the lampposts are now being padded. No wonder my hopes for the future of humanity are growing dimmer by the day.
I don’t walk into stuff whilst texting (I don’t text much, for one), but I do sometimes when I’m reading a really engrossing book.
And do you know what?
It’s my own damn fault. It’s no-one else’s job to protect me from it.
I don’t walk into stuff whilst texting (I don’t text much, for one), but I do sometimes when I’m reading a really engrossing book.
And do you know what?
It’s my own damn fault. It’s no-one else’s job to protect me from it.
I did that a few years ago while walking to college. I was completely engrossed, and walked straight into a bike that was chained to a lamppost.
If these people are so routinely oblivious to what’s going on around them when they’re walking along, then getting the occasional wake-up call from walking into a lamppost is probably a good thing. Maybe it will get the message across to them before they do something more drastic such as wander out into traffic or into an open drain. By telling them that they don’t need to take any sort of personal responsibility in such a basic thing as looking where they walk, they could get into the habit of thinking that everybody else is simply going to look out for them all the time.
I’m known around my town (village?) as one who walks and reads at the same time. I haven’t suffered more than surprise when someone honks at me. Surely if you know the route you’re walking you can be concious enough the know your surrondings? This for me is a been there done that
