At Takebashi and other stations, more people are browsing mobile devices — feature phones and the like — while walking. Or rather, it feels like everyone is doing it.
Accidents seem to be rising too. In May at JR Yotsuya Station, a fifth-grade boy walking while operating his phone accidentally fell from the platform to the trackside. A train entered right afterward, but because he fell into the gap between the train and the platform, disaster was averted; still, Chuo Line rapid services — 24 trains up and down — were delayed up to 43 minutes, affecting about 23,000 people. I do not know about this case, but in railway accidents the person at fault may be asked for damages, so please be careful.
This reminded me of being scolded as a child for walking while reading a book (a manga?!). I am not sure whether I mentally quipped "What about the Ninomiya Kinjiro statue," but I understood it was wrong.
With the spread of mobile phones, use while driving cars or mopeds was banned by the 2004 Road Traffic Act revision, but there is no law banning use while walking. Compared with conventional phones, smartphones — mini-computers, really — tend to draw the eyes more deeply to the screen, and the risk of not noticing surroundings is said to be higher.
At last, momentum to do something seems to be building. After the Yotsuya accident and others, JR East on June 10 prepared about 1,000 posters reading "Mobile phones & games — not while walking"= photo upper left = and posted them at stations, also making announcements asking people to refrain from use while walking
. Tokyo Metro has posted "Walking while using your phone is dangerous" posters= photo upper right, at Otemachi Station = for longer (why neither JR nor Metro uses the word "smartphone" is ??). On June 19, Chiyoda Ward submitted a request to four railway operators serving the ward, including JR East and Tokyo Metro, calling for safety measures such as platform doors and user warnings. At NTT Docomo's shareholders' meeting on June 18, a question was raised, and President Kato commented that since February they have created a new manner logo and will work steadily, including asking manufacturers to use it.
Saying "That's common sense — don't walk and use your phone" probably will not work. I have read that visually impaired people walking by Braille blocks are bumped into more often and then apologized to. You cannot tell by looking whether the person who bumped you was using a phone or listening to music, but "Many people used to hear my cane and step aside, but lately that rarely happens." It is not walking-and-using, but more people casually talk on the phone inside cafés and restaurants — or rather, it feels like everyone does. Personally I am pessimistic, but we probably have no choice but to keep saying it and posting warnings.(￣、￣;)