"Put down your phone and live," local governments are again appealing to pedestrians. And why not to drivers? - According to ITS research, in the area of pedestrian crossings as many as 85 percent of drivers exceed the speed limit. The perpetrators are the drivers, and towards the drivers we should direct slogans like "slow down," "don't kill," says Tomasz Tosza, deputy director at the Traffic Management Office in Warsaw.
Gdansk councilors from the "Everything for Gdansk" grouping want the City to paint signs reminding pedestrians to put down their phones at crosswalks. They have sent an intervention on this issue to the mayor of Gdansk. The goal, according to the councilors, is to improve road safety and minimize the number of fatal accidents. Pictograms - for example, with the slogan "Go offline" would appear at selected lanes.
Councilors appeal in Gdansk, Lodz leads the campaign
"We are proposing this initiative in response to the alarming statistics of road accidents, as well as the growing problem of addiction to mobile devices, which can distract pedestrians - both adults and children - from road safety rules," explainedKatarzyna Czerniewska, chairwoman of the "Everything for Gdansk" club, during a meeting with journalists.
In Gdansk, we have adopted the goal of implementing the "zero fatal accidents on the road" program. We want every resident of our city to feel safe, and pedestrian crossings to be places where road infrastructure and safety rules can be fully trusted," added Councilman Marcin Makowski.
Lodz recently decided on similar measures. Signs with a crossed-out phone were painted on sidewalks as part of the "Put down your phone and live" campaign. As part of the action, officials posted footage of two dangerous incidents involving pedestrians on social media.
- Each time it was inattention and a phone in hand. That's why in Lodz there will be new markings at pedestrian crossings to help "turn on the thinking," officials explained.
In Gdansk, the idea of the councilors was criticized by the Gdansk Agglomeration Development Forum. The association stresses that the Everything for Gdansk councilors do not care about police statistics.
The action is aimed at convincing them that the responsibility for every pedestrian hit in the lanes lies with the pedestrian who was with a phone in hand. We suggest to WdG councilors that they do not give up on the action, just direct it more towards reality. Let's paint the slogan "Put down the phone and let live" in front of the crosswalks on the roadway. This will give every driver a moment's thought about whether he or she glances at the phone screen or talks too often while driving," FRAG commented.
The association sprinkles in data that proves that it is not at all pedestrian behavior that is the biggest problem. It refers to statistics according to which 51 percent of drivers use a hands-free phone while driving, 22.2 percent talk with a phone to their ear, while 23.2 percent of drivers read/send text messages [ESRA3 report, 2023].
According to another Polish ITS study (2017), 7 percent of pedestrians used their phone while crossing a crosswalk. More recent (Frej, Jaskiewicz, 2023) random surveys, on single crossings, indicate about 22 percent.
According to the statistics, pedestrians are the victims
FRAG also cites statistics from 2023 according to which 77.9 percent of accidents involving pedestrians were the fault of the driver. 54.3 percent of accidents involving pedestrians occurred within pedestrian crossings. Among them, the main cause was the driver's failure to give priority - 77.3 percent.
Thus, the most common perpetrators are drivers, and the most common victims are pedestrians over the age of 40 (so not youngsters with their noses in their phones). Inscriptions targeting young pedestrians are doubly misguided, activists explain.
This type of action is also criticized by Tomasz Tosza, deputy director of the Traffic Management Office in Warsaw. He is the one who successfully implemented the ZERO vision in Jaworzno, which aims to eliminate fatal accidents on the roads altogether.
- This is blaming the victims of road accidents. Such painting has no effect on safety, especially since the slogans often appear in front of pedestrian crossings with traffic lights. The perpetrators are the drivers, and towards the drivers we should direct slogans like "slow down," "don't kill." According to ITS research, in the area of pedestrian crossings as many as 85 percent of drivers exceed the speed limit, Tomasz Tosza says in an interview with AiB.
Asked about the recordings published by Lodz, he says that we are dealing with thousands of traffic incidents at crossings and crossings.
- "I'm glad" that this time it was possible to record a situation in which pedestrians were at fault, says Tosza. And he adds that actions like "Put the phone down and live" serve to ease the consciences of those responsible for safety.
Safety will not be improved by painting slogans, but by illuminating and elevating pedestrian crossings, slowing thresholds and signaling at all crossings with more than two lanes in one direction, Tomasz Tosza stresses.
Police data for January-June 2024 shows that the largest number of accidents in Warsaw - 347 - were caused by vehicle drivers - as much as 92 percent of all accidents (!). Pedestrians caused 25 accidents, accounting for only 7 percent of all accidents. In addition, the data proves that the cause of the highest number of accidents caused by drivers is failure to give priority to a pedestrian at a crosswalk, which accounts for 24 percent of the total, followed by failure to give priority to a pedestrian at a pedestrian crossing (53) - 15 percent.
