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The local government of the Japanese city of Yamato forbade walking with a telephone in their hands, becoming the first in the world to issue this type of directive.
Yamato is a medium-sized city in Kanagawa Prefecture on the island of Honshu. It has about 235 thousand residents, but typically for Japan has a high population density. There are up to 8.6 thousand on 1 km² of area. residents, and the streets are forever crowded. That is why, according to the authorities, inattentive passers-by are a threat.
The act prohibiting the active use of smartphones and other mobile devices in pedestrian traffic was adopted last Thursday and will come into force on July 1.
Its originators support the analysis that they carried out by observing traffic in two different places in Yamato. Each time they looked at a group of about 6,000 people. They determined that 12 percent residents walking with their eyes on their smartphone, exposing themselves and others to danger.
There were smartphone paths, but the ban is something new
For the time being, no fines or other punishments for the disobedient. The services will only apply instruction. Either way, we are dealing here with a precedent, because while the ban on using a smartphone in a car does not surprise anyone, in pedestrian traffic it is definitely a novelty.
Earlier, Japan became one of the precursors of the so-called smartphone paths, i.e. designated pavement lanes, where the use of the phone is to be safe. In Poland, the first and currently the only path of this type is Warsaw, on ul. Nowowiejska. It was established in June 2019, and unofficially. The markings were painted without consulting the City Road Authority.
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