This is getting out of control. Two weeks ago, Karl Kruger, a New York state senator said he wants to ban people from using handheld devices while crossing the street. He said:

“They’re walking into speeding cars. They’re walking into buses. They’re walking into one another and it’s creating a number of fatalities that have been documented right here in the city… you should not be crossing streets and endangering yourself and the lives of others.”

I’m sorry, but what is he talking about? I’m pretty sure that people “walking into one another” is not a major killer up there with, say, lung cancer. And people using handheld devices crossing the street are “endangering the lives of others”? How does he reckon this? Are pedestrians unknowingly getting caught up in other people’s headphone cables and being dragged under a truck to their death?

And “it’s creating a number of fatalities”? Eh? So, the handheld devices are creating the fatalities, not, say, that the unfortunate person may not have looked left or right as they crossed the street. Or that, people are encountering (as Kruger points out),“speeding cars”. So, you walk onto the road and a speeding car kills you, and your iPod is the problem. Great logic, Kruger.

And how many fatalities did this “cause” in New York city? Two. One hundred and seventy pedestrians were killed by vehicles in New York city last year, and two of them were wearing iPods or making a phone call or whatever. And the problem is handheld devices, not the speeding 2 ton hunks of metal, or the unfortunates’ lack of wherewithall to look where they were going.

Kruger, you could sue me for calling you an idiot, so I won’t. But I think you’re an idiot.

But get this. A new study has turned up something which may make you leave your iPod at home forever. Turns out that if you are unfortunate enough to be wearing headphones as you, wait for it, get struck by lightning, your injuries could be exacerbated by the wires to your head. The authors said that they felt the public should be warned. At this juncture I should point out that wearing headphones does not increase your chances of being struck by lightning; it merely could increase the severity of the injuries you may sustain if you do get struck by lightning.

Let’s put this in context, shall we?

Chances of getting struck by lightning (with or without handheld devices) – 576,000 to 1
Chances of being killed in the next year in a transportation accident (with or without handheld devices) – 77 to 1

The problem is, clearly, handheld devices.

References:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/07/11/4331652-cp.html
Lightning Struck iPod Jogger

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_037234835.html
Kruger’s Bill Banning iPods

http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/02/14/nyc-pedestrian-fatalities-up-in-2006/
New York Pedestrian Fatalities

http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm
Thanks for the odds!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 54 0754700000031UTC50 ppm5031 11 547 3111UTC pm and is filed under Macintosh, Music, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.