German city adds traffic lights to pavement to alert citizens who can't look up from their phones

a blog by Big Red

Have you ever been walking in the city while looking at your smartphone, and you accidentally step right off the curb and into the street without even looking? Well I know I have multiple times. Two German cities have implemented new traffic lights that are on the ground to prevent smartphone users from walking into oncoming traffic. 

CNN - Worried about people glued to their phones while they walk down the street?
Two German cities were concerned enough to install traffic lights that face up at pedestrians ... on the sidewalk.
The southern city of Augsburg recently installed the system at two crowded train stations after a manager saw something similar in Cologne.

Cologne installed similar devices in 2011, according to the German transportation research institute STUVA.

Lights on the ground alert pedestrians looking down at their phones.

The lights cost about 10,000 euros ($11,313) each. Some have complained about the price, said Jurgen Fergg, a spokesman for the Augsburg municipal service, but the cost is "justified compared to the damage that can be prevented."

"We will keep an eye on the results and see if less people will walk over the red light," Fergg said.

A 19-year-old man was seriously injured March 8 in Augsburg when he walked into the path of an oncoming train while wearing headphones, according to police. Other cities in Germany have had fatal accidents involving distracted pedestrians, according to Fergg.

So we all do this at times, we get super glued to our phones and just can't look away. I can't tell you how many times I've stepped off a curb and almost walked right into traffic because I could not look away from my phone. It sounds pathetic, but it can happen to anyone. The real question here is how the fuck do those tiny ass lights cost 11 grand a piece? That seems so high, for such small lights that don't even look like they would work. I think I would walk right past those things and not even think twice. 

If you read the last paragraph of the article I posted, it says that a 19 year old walked right onto train tracks with an oncoming train? It's amazing that the kid didn't die, but how do you not notice a train coming? Like seriously, how do you not even feel the train the coming. If I am on a sidewalk near train tracks, I can almost always feel the vibration of the oncoming train in the ground. Hopefully these lights don't work, so that we don't have to waste our tax payer money to implement these around the US.