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Smartphone Zombies Get LED Sidewalk Lights in Tel Aviv

Put a smartphone-distracted pedestrian in a crowded, busy city and the chances of an accident go up exponentially. Tel Aviv is aiming to decrease the number of injuries caused by car-pedestrian accidents by making the latter more attentive to traffic.
Special LED sidewalk light in Tel Aviv, Israel for "smartphone zombies" 7 photos
Photo: Channel 12 News
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This type of pedestrians has come to be known as “smartphone zombies,” and if the fact that they needed their own dictionary term isn’t clue enough that things are bad, consider this: “zombie” traffic lights have been implemented in several major cities around the world, protecting the pedestrians from themselves.

Tel Aviv, Israel, is just the latest on that list. For the time being, the municipality is running a trial, with a single crossing using specially designed LED sidewalk lights that should keep “zombies” from being run over by cars, Times of Israel reports.

Since the “zombies” are always looking down at their phone, putting lights at their feet should work to get their attention – at least in theory. Or, as Tomer Dror, head of the traffic management division at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, puts it: “We cannot force them to take their eyes out of the smartphone and into the road. We need to find ways to put the road into their eyes.”

The sidewalk lights turn green when pedestrians can cross the street and red when they’re supposed to stop. The newly-debuted program will run for 2 weeks at a busy intersection in central Tel Aviv, with plans to extend it further if results show that pedestrians are made more attentive by the “zombie” lights and the number of accidents is reduced.

Similar programs have already been deployed in China, Brazil, Singapore, Australia and Germany, and authorities in the U.K. are also talking about implementing one in the near future. Clearly, simply warning pedestrians to put their phone away when they’re crossing the street is not working.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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