Personal Injury Blog

Spike in Accidents Involving Pedestrians Wearing Headphones

January 27th, 2012
accidents invloving pedestrians wearing headphones

According to a new study, there has been a substantial increase in the number of accidents involving pedestrians wearing headphones that have been injured while walking.

As any San Diego car accident lawyer knows, distractions exist not just inside a car, but also on the street.  According to a new study, there has been a substantial increase in the number of accidents involving pedestrians wearing headphones that have been injured while walking.

The study was conducted by the Researchers at the University Of Maryland School of Medicine and the University Of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.  According to the study, serious injuries to pedestrians who were wearing headphones have spiked over the past 6 years alone.  The data for the study came from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Google News and West Law research.

The accidents occurred between 2004 and 2011.  The researchers analyzed serious pedestrian injuries and fatalities that occurred in accidents involving automobiles and trains.  The results of the study have been published in the journal Injury Prevention.

Between 2004 and 2011, researchers found approximately 116 accident cases in which pedestrians who were injured in the accident were confirmed to have been wearing headphones at the time of the accident.  Out of the 116 accidents, 70% resulted in death to the pedestrian in the crash.  68% of the victims of these accidents were male, and 37% of the accident victims were under the age of 13.

Pedestrians distracted by their headphones are just as much at risk of being involved in train accidents as auto accidents.  More than 55% of the accidents involving pedestrians and headphones during this period of time involved trains.  Approximately 29% of the vehicles that were involved in these accidents reported sounding a horn just before the accident.  According to the researchers, this increased rate in fatalities coincides with the increased popularity of personal music systems.

The researchers point to 2 phenomena that are linked to increased pedestrian injuries and fatalities while they’re wearing headphones – distractions and sensory deprivation.  A person, who is listening to his i-Pod while walking, is undoubtedly distracted.  For pedestrians, the distractions are increased by sensory deprivation, because the pedestrian’s ability to hear a horn from an approaching automobile or train is diminished.

The researchers were spurred to conduct the study after a recent teen accident in Maryland, in which a teenager listening to his personal music system was killed in an accident involving a train.  The boy had been given several auditory warnings to get off the tracks, but he could not hear the warnings.

Posted by Robert Reeves at 4:52 pm: No comments

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