WASHINGTON — It is an awkward reality in an age of technology: pedestrians run into things while staring at their phones.
Alas, there is help.
The Chinese city of Chongqing has created a smartphone sidewalk lane, offering a path for those too engrossed in messaging and tweeting to watch where they’re going.
The origin of that idea actually came from Washington and a National Geographic T.V. series called “Mind Over Masses.”
The show got a permit from the District to stencil and paint a block of 18th Street Northwest.
One lane said “No cellphones.” The other said “Cellphones: walk this lane at your own risk.”
The result?
“The most common response of cell phone users on seeing these stenciled lanes was to take out their phones and take a picture of them,” says Rob Pegoraro, a columnist with Yahoo Tech who checked out the lanes.
He says one lady on her phone switched lanes. Someone else shouted jokingly at a letter carrier that he was using the cell phone lane, and he promptly moved.
The property manager in China says the lanes there are intended to be ironic – – to remind people that it’s dangerous to tweet while walking the street.
“There are lots of elderly people and children in our street, and walking with your cellphone may cause unnecessary collisions here,” said Nong Cheng, the marketing official with Meixin Group, which manages the area in the city’s entertainment zone.
Meixin has marked a 50-meter (165-foot) stretch of pavement with two lanes: one that prohibits cellphone use next to one that allows pedestrians to use them — at their “own risk.”
She said that pedestrians were not taking the new lanes seriously, but that many were snapping pictures of the signs and sidewalk.
“Those using their cellphones of course have not heeded the markings on the pavement,” she said. “They don’t notice them.”
WTOP’s Andrew Mollenbeck and Associated Press contributed to this report.
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