Serious Injuries Increase for Headphone-Wearing Pedestrians New Study Shows
Listening to your tunes while walking? You could have an increased risk to be involved in a pedestrian accident. Researchers from the University of Maryland found that serious injuries involving pedestrians wearing headphones have more than tripled since 2004.
The reason? Music often blocks out horns or sirens that would have alerted them they were about to step into dangers way. The team conducting the study found that the distraction of music causes “inattentional blindness,” when multiple stimuli fed to the brain divide its mental resource allocation. Head-phone wearing pedestrians in the study died 70 percent of the time as a result of their injuries sustained from being hit by traffic.
In north Texas, most people drive everywhere they go but in areas like downtown Fort Worth and Dallas there are plenty of pedestrians walking around. It’s easy to imagine zoning out to your music while crossing a street – never realizing that a car is about to slam into you. Pedestrians must use all their senses to stay safe and aware in their surroundings.
As a Fort Worth injury attorney, so many of my clients have been hurt in pedestrian accidents at no fault of their own. I can only imagine how the addition of headphones could have increased their injuries. Drivers look out for pedestrians and pedestrians look out and listen for cars.
