Editorial : NY lawmakers would waste time banning texting while crossing street

A New York senator proposed legislation that would ban text messaging and the use of iPod devices while crossing the street. Sen. Karl Kruger, a Democrat from Brooklyn, compares the possible offense to jaywalking and hopes to fine offenders $100.

The very proposal of this law insults the intelligence of every New Yorker, and that other states, such as Arkansas, have looked at similar legislation is even more frightening.

The prevalence of new media — iPods, iPads, cellphones — makes enforcing any texting and walking law futile and a waste of law enforcements’ time and resources.

Just as jaywalking laws are wholly ignored, this would also represent a useless ordinance passed in the spirit of raising fine revenues rather than actually protecting pedestrians. Though students may catch themselves every day before distractedly walking off the curb onto Waverly Avenue, only a handful of complete anomalies resulted in deadly car accidents nationwide.

The law ultimately aims to protect New Yorkers from their own stupidity. Perhaps it would make more sense to criminalize failure to look both ways before crossing a street. This would protect pedestrians from a host of dangerously distracting behaviors, such as eating a sandwich, reading the newspaper or digging through a purse for some lip balm.

A public awareness campaign — or even stickers or signs around major crosswalks, while still slightly absurd — might be more effective. At the very least, it wouldn’t waste the valuable time of New York lawmakers, who quite frankly have enough on their plates with a $10 billion state deficit.

But students, if you see the merits of being responsible new-media users and citizens, keep an eye out on the corners of Comstock and Euclid avenues, in front of the Hall of Languages and most corners of Walnut Avenue. An obsession with texting may get the better of us in these high-traffic areas.