Street iPod bill hits wrong note
Two men wearing earphones cross a street in New York City back in 2007. Credit: AP
For decades people ran, walked and biked on streets and sidewalks, listening to Walkmans, with no mass movement to ban the practice. Now, though, laws are being proposed in New York and elsewhere to keep people from listening to music or using electronic devices while on the public thoroughfares, a silly idea.
State Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill in 2007 that would ban the use of phones, iPods and other electronic devices while walking across streets. Suddenly it's getting attention. Kruger first proposed the law for cities with populations over 1 million, but now he'd like to see it made law statewide.
In Arkansas, a lawmaker who proposed a ban on pedestrians using headphones in both ears encountered a tremendous backlash and withdrew the bill Tuesday.
These ideas may preserve a few lives - a tiny percentage could even be drivers avoiding distracted exercisers. But if we continuously seize rights in order to save tiny numbers of lives, we'll be losing more in quality than we gain in longevity.
Running, walking or biking in a technology-induced haze is a bad idea, but we can't ban behaviors just because they aren't smart.
Distracting technology isn't new. It's the distraction of the lawmakers, away from their real responsibilities, that's causing this trouble. hN
