Honolulu became the first city in the United States to move forward with a distracted walking law that seeks to ban people from texting while they are crossing the street.
The idea is that people of all ages are putting themselves at risk when they opt to look at their phone rather than the street in front of them. So the state insists that this move is to keep people safe.
Ironically, safety always tends to be used as the excuse whenever the government wants to pass a law that seemingly restricts our freedoms. And in this instance, liberty is infringed under the justification of trying to keep people safe.
The victims of this new legislation are going to be extorted from, having violence initiated against them, because the state viewed them as having engaged in an activity that might have endangered someone at some point. What's really happening though is people are being fined over victimless crimes; the state earns yet another opportunity to acquire funds from the public. Their idea of “security” looks a lot like violence in disguise.
When the government gets busy with trying to keep people safe from themselves, natural rights and individual liberties will be continually encroached upon and violated as they have been.
The concern for safety shouldn't automatically trump personal liberty. And the more that the state wants to infringe upon personal freedoms, the more that they will endanger the public and ultimately make them less safe.
Critics of these sorts of restrictions, bans on texting while walking etc, have previously suggested that this sort of legislation only seeks to draw attention away from what might really be a factor that is contributing to the problem. This could be something such as poor and failing infrastructure.
Also, if a pedestrian is crossing the street when they have the right to do so, then it shouldn't matter how they are crossing the street. When crossing the street during their time to do so, the responsibility is on the driver to operate safely and not endanger them. So now, even if someone safely crosses the street when it's their turn to do so, they'll be putting themselves at risk of being financially victimized by the state.
Pedestrians being distracted while crossing the street isn't anything new, and the majority have been multi-tasking successfully for years. If it's truly about safety, why stop at phones? why not make any and all multitasking while walking a crime? Smoking, eating, drinking, listening to music, dog walking, reading, how and where do you draw the line? Instead of playing that game though, let's choose to embrace freedom and personal responsibility, rather than fostering a nanny state and passing yet one more unnecessary piece of legislation.
Pics:
Pixabay
Starz via giphy
differenttruths.com
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/29/us/smart-phones-crosswalks-hawaii-illegal/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/25/honolulu-fines-people-for-texting-while-crossing-road
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-montclair-texting-walking-20180225-story.html
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Safety First!...:)...
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Never organisms do things thinking about the binestar of the people, they see the business at all, if at least the proceeds go to improve the tencion to the hospitals, we know that this is not the case, more money there is more money .
That people cross the streets without looking is a reality in the whole world, something would have to be done to reverse this behavior
Thank you very much dear friend @doitvoluntarily for sharing this news
I wish you a good night
Before starting to read your post, I thought that I would have another orientation, but as I was reading I was doing solidarity with your brave position, which I share. Congratulations for giving that point of view. Best regards.
good rule.i is very important for our daily life. if we become careless to cross the road,it will be dangerous for us.so we should obey this rule properly. @upvoted @resteemit
Hola amiga muy buen post, saludos
I think society could do with a bit more Darwinism and lot less protecting people from their own stupidity.
Nice post 😀
Stunning and Really amazing writing because it is very informative.
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