Earphones and Iphones – Dangerous Whether Driving, Cycling, or Walking

The new trend that we can’t help to notice is people wearing earphones or headphones as they walk, drive and cycle around town.  Now I will admit it appears to be a much bigger problem in big cities due to the pedestrian traffic in the streets.  With the longer commutes that pedestrians undertake in an effort to listen to music, I can’t help but believe the prevalence of the IPhone and Android phones don’t help contribute to this.  If your old enough, you can sort of remember a similar outbreak of this when Sony introduced the first Walkman.

The technology keeps increasing so well that these new earphones and headphones have noise cancellation, which basically makes the listener impervious to his surroundings.  This is a huge inherent risk for pedestrians.  It makes it almost impossible to hear traffic, noise from automobiles, horns honking, etc.

The problem just doesn’t extend to pedestrians.  It has become commonplace for individuals operating an automobile to have headphones on.  This is also true with motorcyclists and bicyclists.  Again with the advance of technology it’s providing drivers with more and more distractions.  First it was texting, now its movies and music.

A lot of studies have not been conducted on this area yet, so statistics are hard to come by. This is especially true because a lot of the statistics are coming from media outlets, which tend to focus strictly on the cases involving fatalities.  However, it is quite alarming to take notice of the fact that over the previous five years 118 reported accidents to pedestrians in the State of Florida involved the victim wearing earphones or headphones.  Now while this isn’t an over troubling number, 80 of the 118 reported incidents involved fatalities.  That number is extremely troubling.  A number of these accidents also involved trains.  One in three cases said that they involved the use of horns that either were ignored or could not be heard.

These devices can cause “inattentional blindness”, which basically means the brain is trying to comprehend and compute too many stimuli at once.  That distraction is amplified by sensory deprivation, because the sense of sound is no longer available to the person.  This doesn’t allow the pedestrian to hear things such as horns coming from an automobile or trains.

Even more troubling is that a number of these incidents lead to the victim sustaining a Traumatic Brain Injury, which are often difficult to detect and treat.  New technologies in MRI’s that include DTI, SWI, and PET scan have enabled doctors to better examine accident victims for these injuries.

If you have been injured in an accident involving a motor vehicle, motorcycle, or as a pedestrian, call me at the Dolman Law Group at (727) 451-6900.  Our experienced attorneys are willing and able to help you or answer questions in regards to your claim.  – Bryan C. Hannan, Esq.  bryan@dolmanlaw.com

Bryan C. Hannan is a St. Petersburg personal injury attorney who limits his practice to first and third party insurance claims relating to an automobile accident, motorcycle accident, semi-truck accident, catastrophic injury, traumatic brain injury, insurance carrier bad faith and wrongful death.

Dolman Law Group is a Pinellas County personal injury and civil trial law firm based in Clearwater with satellite offices in Bradenton and Melbourne.  The attorneys at Dolman law Group regularly litigate automobile and motorcycle injury claims in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Pasco, Polk and Hernando County.