City in China introduces 'cellphone lane' for pedestrians glued to their smartphones
City in China introduces 'cellphone lane' for pedestrians glued to their smartphones
Some places have bicycle lanes; Chongqing, China has a phone lane. The designated sidewalk is intended for pedestrians glued to their smartphone screens and includes two way demarcations to try to prevent collisions between distracted phone users.
An accompanying sign states that no cellphones are to be used outside of the cellphone sidewalk:
Chongqing isn't the first city to introduce a cellphone lane. Back in July this year, a sidewalk in Washington D.C. was stenciled with two lanes: “CELLPHONES: WALK IN THIS LANE AT YOUR OWN RISK” on the left, “NO CELLPHONES” on the right:
The idea was conceived by National Geographic for a documentary called Mind over Masses. After studying people's reactions to the cellphone lane over the course of a day, they discovered that, among other things, people glued to their phones didn't actually notice the markings since they were too pre-occupied with looking at their phones.