The Australian pedestrian council estimates that the use of mobile devices – music players in particular – is the cause of the steep increase in the number of pedestrian deaths in traffic accident. Will laws which limit the volume or listening to music be made?

When teaching children to cross the road safely, they are instructed to look left and right. Will they now also be instructed to turning off their mobile music players? Australia has determined that the use of iPod devices disconnects the users from their environment, and constitutes a significant factor which contributes to the increase in deaths of pedestrians in road accidents.

New South Wales, the continent’s most populous state, recorded an increase of 25 percent of deaths last year – and now believe that portable music players are the major cause for the rising number of pedestrian and cyclists deaths while the number of traffic accidents decreases.

Australia is not alone in this assumption: the data is similar in Europe and the United States.

“Death by iPod”
The issue dominated the headlines in Sydney, Australia – After six pedestrians were run down last weekend in the city – all of them listened to the iPod and were not careful. The last of these, a 46 year old woman, was run over by an ambulance, when she apparently could not hear its siren.

Harold Scrab, pedestrian Council of Australia (PCA) – a public body that deals with road safety – thinks there is need for government action to prevent music fans from becoming victims. “The phenomenon of the death because of iPod, (Death by iPod) is relatively new, and is hard to connect because a long time may pass between the death and the filing of the coroner’s findings,” he said.

Pedestrians – like lambs to the slaughter
“We must ask ourselves: why there was an increase in deaths of pedestrians in accidents, while the number of accidents has decreased? Perhaps the explanation lies in the listening devices. The Council also recently launched a campaign which shows the pedestrian, who listens to mobile phones and other portable devices is – like sheep going to slaughter.

Scrab also said that civilians will not be fined for playing loud music in their car, but they listen to it more dangerous, their own lives. In his opinion, the state should promote legislation that would ban pedestrians listen to music too loud.

However, despite the problems in enforcing such laws: it will be possible to make the volume restriction by setting a low maximum power the device itself (similar to limit the maximum speed in cars taken by car manufacturers) – or prohibition on the use of headphones is inside the ear, seal it from sounds of the environment.