Comments on: Intexticated: Texting Teen Falls Into Manhole

By: twilight boy

twilight boy — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:27:47 +0000

I don

By: spiderleggreen

spiderleggreen — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:19:42 +0000

Enterprising little gal.

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:08:08 +0000

I’ve noticed for a few year that pedestrians on cell phones walk into each other and take a step or two into an intersection when the crosswalk sign is red. The definition of “accident” seems to grow in concert with acts of irresponsibility.

By: Tom Vanderbilt

Tom Vanderbilt — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:58:17 +0000

I should only point out that what interested me about this item was not the liability of ConEd, etc., but the distraction that is possible when one is engaged with a mobile device; if it compromises our ability to safely walk in the environment, something our long evolutionary history has given us good tools to do, you can only imagine the problem in doing something more evolutionarily novel, and much more complex — driving — while using a mobile device.

By: Rich Wilson

Rich Wilson — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:44:40 +0000

Um, what if she had been blind? I’m not sure a sweeping cane would have detected the open manhole.

By: Josh R

Josh R — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:12:24 +0000

Granted that the proper sequence of tasks for the sewer workers should always be “Set up safety and warning barriers, THEN open manhole.” but still, the strident refusal to realize that it’s your responsibility to watch where you’re putting your feet makes me weep for the future.

I wish the workers had set up the cones properly, and that she had walked in between two of them before falling in. As it is, the stupid lawsuit will likely succeed, thus convincing people that they have no responsibility for their own safety.