Walking while texting isn't a crime

Putting people in jail for using their iPhones in the street is a step too far in dealing with a modern irritation

Texting on the street could be outlawed in New Jersey. (Getty)

Hipsters – and a good many others – beware. Walking along the street and sending a smiley icon to a friend at the same time on an iPhone could land you up in jail for 15 days in New Jersey if one determined assemblywoman has her way. “Distracted pedestrians”, as Democrat Pamela Lampitt terms them, “are a danger to themselves and to drivers on the road”.

It sounds like a classic case of nanny-state nuttiness but the assemblywoman is far from alone in America, which is taking a very dim view of street texting. Similar bills were proposed recently in four other US states and one is currently pending in Hawaii. None has made into law – yet – but with bills coming up each year in one state or another, some experts think this is only a matter of time.

The anti-texting brigade is not completely mad. The percentage of fatalities in the US involving pedestrians has risen markedly in the last half-decade, and some say it is reasonable to assume that this is partly because more and more people are not looking where they are going because they are busy tap-tapping away on electronic devices. Still, outlawing texting while walking seems draconian in the extreme.

It is a pity that people are becoming so anti-social thanks to iPhones and the like, staring fixatedly at little screens instead of engaging in a bit of good old-fashioned eye contact in the public space. But putting them in jail will only make them martyrs to the cause of modern technology. People need to rediscover the joy of observing the world around them for themselves – not be coerced into doing so.