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Pedestrians risk life multitasking

RlZANUZZAMAN LASKAR
The afternoon was relatively calm because it was hot, more so because it was the weekend. No jam-packed streets in Dhanmondi with bumper-to-bumper traffic honking their horns uselessly. Only a few vehicles were whizzing by at almost regular intervals.
Sultana Rahman was walking on the street. She was not on the pavement and she was lost in the conversation she was having over the telephone.
She did not even see the saloon coming out of the alley. She only felt something hit her and the ground was getting closer and closer until she lay flat there.
The car had hit her but it managed to stop itself from running her over.
“I was lucky... the traffic was light. With another car around only the almighty knows what could have happened,” she said.
While reckless driving has gained a lot of attention lately, distracted walkers have become another growing problem on Dhaka streets.
People may enter a near trance-like
state while using mobile phones, MP3 players or electronic personal organisers.
Psychologists call it "divided attention" or "inattentional blindness," and it is increasingly becoming the focus of road safety awareness campaigns around the world.
“The era of mobile gadgets is making mobility more perilous,” said Hasib Mohammed Ahsan, director of Accident Research Centre (ARC) at Buet.
It is especially risky on crowded streets where a multitude of multi-taskers turn and swerve and walk to the beat of their devices, he said.
Most times, he noted, the mishaps for distracted walkers are minor, like the lightly dinged elbow and broken fingernail that Sultana suffered, and, as some fallen say, a nasty case of bruised ego and hurt pride.
However, the injuries can be serious, and they are on the rise.
On March 2, Tanjid Hossain, 23, was crushed under a train on Khilkhet level crossing in Dhaka.
According to witnesses, the private
university student was talking on his phone while walking along the rail lines. He did not notice the train coming from behind.
Doctors say that an "increasing number of people” are visiting emergency rooms these days because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while listening to music or using a mobile phone.
"Their numbers are on the rise,” said Md Shah Alam, an associate professor at the National Institute of Trauma and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR), popularly known as the Pangu Hospital.
"But numbers mean little here,” he said noting that the number of mishaps is probably much higher considering that most injuries are not severe enough to require a hospital visit.
Examples of such visits include a 16-year-old boy who walked into a pillar while texting and suffered a mild concussion; a 25-year-old who tripped and fractured a finger while listening to music on his MP3 player; and a 68-year-old man who fell off the stairs while talking on his mobile phone, spraining a thumb and an ankle, the professor said.
According to psychologists, sometimes pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects or people that are right in front of
them.
One explanation is that a mobile phone conversation prompts the listener to create visual imagery related to the conversation in a way that obscures the processing of real images, said Shamim F Karim, professor at the Department of Psychology of Dhaka University.
She said mobile phones give people an urge to pursue priorities that they feel more important than keeping their eyes on the street.
For Zafar Hasan, 21, the priority was keeping in touch with his friend from overseas. Last month while he was shopping in a Gulshan shopping arcade, he was texting his friend and he walked into the window of a footwear store, thinking it was an entrance to the store.
“I just started laughing at myself," he said, noting that no harm was done.
The worst part is the humiliation, said Israt Hossain, 20, an architecture student who 18 months ago had her own pratfall.
She said the pavement was packed with pedestrians in Motijheel. So she decided to walk on the street along parked cars. The trouble is she was also texting.
She unwittingly started to veer into the road, prompting an oncoming car to honk. Israt instinctively jumped toward the pavement. She had forgotten about the line of parked cars
inbetween.
“I hit the side of a car, and the phone hit the ground,” she said. She and her phone were uninjured, except for her pride. “It was pretty significantly embarrassing," she said.