Reader response draft 3 (floor lights)
According to the article by Tan (2017), “Floor lights help 'smartphone zombies' keep eye on the road”, Land Transport Authority (LTA) will be implementing a six-month trial project by installing LED strips on the pavement to improve the road safety feature. It aims to resolve the hazards caused by the 'smartphone zombies' phenomenon. ‘Smartphone zombies’ refer to people who walk without taking their eyes off their phone. While the implementation of LED strips aims to improve the safety aspect of the pedestrians, it possibly poses potential problems that the article did not address. The authority should focus on a different approach in order to raise people’s awareness of road safety.
First of all, the project might lead people to be over-reliant on the LED technology. Barber (2017) explained that the traffic lights help the pedestrians by directing them to react accordingly but it cannot check the safety of the road for them. Pedestrians are required to check the road by themselves to ensure that it is safe to cross. When facing an irresponsible motorist who drove his car recklessly definitely increase the chances of an accident to occur. Thus, it is important that the pedestrian lookout for any unusual vehicle behaviour before crossing the road.
Next, the project would create a bad habit among the young generation and impose danger in them. Pakri (2017) states that the approach might input wrong ideas to the children that it is safe to cross the road as long as the LED strips indicator states so. There will be unbearable consequences if the children were not properly taught on road safety. One scenario is the primary school children who walk to school every day and rely heavily on LED strips to cross the road. They would build up this bad habit and it would pose danger to them if they travelled to another country where the LED strips were not installed.
Furthermore, the ‘smartphone zombies’ might not react to the LED strips while they are focusing on their phones. According to Himmer (2014), a research done by NTT Docomo shows that there is only a small percentage of field vision when one is focusing on his or her smartphone. As such implementing the project of installing the LED strips might not be as effective.
According to Pakri (2017), instead of accommodating the pedestrians practice of using phones while crossing the road, LTA should invest towards educating the pedestrians about the importance of road safety. Education plays an important role when comes to the safety aspect of all area and building self-responsibility in the pedestrians would eventually raise their awareness of road safety. This approach should start with the adults as they could impart the knowledge of safety to the young generation. The behaviour of the parents always influences their young children. As such, if the parents learn to act safely when crossing the road in front of their children, it could teach them to do the same.
In conclusion, pedestrian safety is being concerned by all. The approach by LTA would improve road safety of the pedestrians. However, instead of heavily spending funds on the project, the authority should explore different approaches that could impart knowledge to the pedestrians and build responsibility in them.
Reference:
Comments
Post a Comment