New Jersey Will Fine Texting While Walking Pedestrians

A lawmaker in New Jersey is proposing to impose fine on texting while walking offense.  The New Jersey bill is contemplating on penalizing pedestrians who are busier looking on their mobile phones rather than on the streets.

New Jersey Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt (D-Camden) sponsored the bill that would make distracted walking or walking while using a non-hands-free cellphone illegal, Reason reported.  The bill would treat texting while walking just like jaywalking. As a penalty, offenders would be fined up to $50 and would be jailed for up to 15 days. According to the records of New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety's 2012 Highway Safety Plan, there were a total of 133 pedestrian fatalities  around New Jersey in 2010.

"If a person on the road, whether walking or driving, presents a risk to others on the road, there should be a law in place to dissuade and penalize risky behavior," Lampitt told New York CBS Local.

Prior to texting while walking bill, New Jersey already had a distracted driving ban where violators would pay up to $400 for the initial offense, Huffington Post reported.  With a measure that would regulate texting while walking would mean that there will be more traffic safety laws for people in New Jersey.  However, for Lampitt, who also works at the University of Pennsylvania  claimed that texting while walking is something personal.  She said that she knew a student there who was hit by a bus while being busy looking at his smartphone.

"Pay attention to what you're doing at that moment. Don't split your time with your phone, with coversations, with anything else," Al Della Fave of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office told CBS2.

Meanwhile, the texting while walking bill has collected different reactions from people.  Last year, another assemblywoman, Gabriela Mosquera (D- Gloucester) tried to pass a bill that would make September Distracted Walking Awareness Month." However, the bill failed.

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texting while walking, texting while walking in New Jersey, texting while walking bill, jaywalking, Pamela Lampitt

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