They’re everywhere! In cars, and in trucks. In stores. At the gym. On the practice tee. On the business channels. On the sidewalks, and the stairways. Full disclosure: Sitting at the coffee shop, writing this edition of the News, I’ve got mine.
Light, comfortable, fabulous sound, and so many choices as to what to listen to, what’s not to like about earbuds?
Ok, there is one thing: listening. It would better be described as multi-tasking. You know, that’s doing two things simultaneously which are fundamentally different, and doing each equally well.
By that definition, very few of us actually multi-task. Like that fork in the road, you either take one – or the other.
I suppose you can argue that, were those two different things like walking and chewing gum, this would not be a story. But multi-tasking in the form of listening and performing a second activity requiring a fair degree of conscious thought – writing an edition of the News serves as a good example – becomes a problem.
Which explains why I couldn’t tell you the first thing about what’s being discussed on the business channel I’m listening to. For me, it’s just white noise.
Of course, I am sitting very comfortably in an easy chair, laptop on the lap, and well out of harm’s way.
That’s not the problem.
Pedestrian Safety
While I’m “officially” retired from teaching, I still find myself on the road on a regular basis, some business and some pleasure. In the last year, I’ve been a pedestrian on the streets of many US cities: Boston, New York, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, and Seattle. That’s a pretty good cross section from which to draw some conclusions about the experience.
The first being this: crossing an intersection in a major city ought to require a Safe Work Permit. If it did, there would be a lot fewer people crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City to get to the biggest Apple Store in the world.
The hazard starts with drivers of motorized vehicles. Yes, they are supposed to stop at red lights and stop signs, and, when turning, yield right of way to crossing pedestrian traffic. But, in the event it’s gone unnoticed, since the onset of COVID it seems like traffic rules have become more of a suggestion than a requirement.
And a lot of drivers aren’t getting the hint.
Of course, that view of non-compliance assumes the driver is actually paying attention, and therefore willingly chooses not to comply. There are other potential explanations for the behavior that do not involve deliberate choice.
Making things more hazardous are the bicyclists, and their various cousins such as rental mopeds and pedal driven taxis. In Chicago, walking back to the hotel after dinner with a good client, I watched two tourists hop on a motorized bike – clearly for the first time – and immediately turn into the oncoming traffic. I was sure I was about to witness another fatal accident.
In many cities, bike riders are now accorded the special status of dedicated lanes. Not that they confine themselves to their lanes. For the pedestrian at the intersection, that’s one more variable to contend with: where might the bicycles be coming from?
The possibilities seem limitless.
If you live in a small town or out in the country, you might have a hard time imagining the scene I’m describing. But if you’ve recently vacationed in a place like the Big Apple, you know exactly what this looks like. Take my word for it: crossing an intersection represents a dangerous undertaking.
At least it seems that way to me. But, is it really that bad?
Bring Data
At work, were you having a debate about something akin to this – “Is this task really as risky as it’s being made out to be?” – it sure would be nice to be able to reach into your desk (or bring up the company intranet on your smartphone) and pull out hard numbers to prove the point.
So much of our sense of risk is a function of perception and gut feeling; when confronted with the data, our perceptions are regularly proven wrong. For pedestrian safety, there is data that conclusively settles the matter.
While the study data goes back to the year 2002, the change since 2015 is nothing short of shocking: the pedestrian fatality rate began to rise significantly year over year, and has nearly doubled, since 2009.
It’s just about impossible not to conclude that this is the combined effect of distracted driving and distracted walking.
Off The Job Safety
Reading about this problem might possibly lead you to another conclusion: “I’m so thankful we don’t allow anyone to wear earbuds on the job. Not out on the shop floor, not while driving a company vehicle, and not while on a Zoom call in the office.”
Lucky you: outlawed is the use of earbuds to the maximum extent possible. I can attest from my frequent Zoom calls not every place of business has gone that far. I’ll leave the question of where to draw the line on using them to the experts and the leaders. I’m sure they are up to the task.
Today, I’m more interested in “off the job safety.” As a former chair of a department Off the Job Safety Committee, I can tell you, back in the day, this safety problem would be of the type to have gotten our attention.
Committees like mine are a long-forgotten relic of industrial history, proving not all progress is good. But today, what leader doesn’t care about what happens to their followers when they leave the job at the end of the day? To family and friends, it really doesn’t matter where someone happened to be standing when they were seriously or fatally injured: on the job or at an intersection.
Nobody wants to see something bad happen to anyone. As a leader, knowing what you now know, what should you do about a problem like this?
Something, for sure.
Hazard Recognition
For any leader who’s concerned about hazard recognition, pedestrian safety and the use of earbuds presents a useful thought exercise. If a pedestrian steps in front of an oncoming car, and both driver and walker are listening to their favorite playlists, would the resulting event be a product of “the failure to recognize the hazard”?
Looked at in the cold, hard, light of a hypothetical example like this, the correct answer is rather obvious, isn’t it?
As to preventive and corrective action, is the appropriate solution to insist on the inclusion of anti-collision technology in vehicles or outlaw using earbuds when driving and walking?
Let’s answer that question with a question: which is the worst solution: one that will never be fully instituted in your lifetime – or one that will never be fully complied with? Another fork in the road.
If you’re serious about serious problems like this, you know they demand serious thought. Keep that in mind the next time you read an investigation report for a safety event in your area of responsibility described in ways resembling these. You might want to return it to the sender, noting, “This problem deserves better thinking than this.”
The Data Speaks
Also found in the underlying data is that the injury rates for those under 18 and over 65 are moving in the opposite and better direction, which raises another important question: what the heck explains that?
For the under 18 crowd, you might want to ask your kids. Or, better, observe their behavior. It appears to me they’re wearing their earbuds, so maybe they just aren’t walking anywhere, anymore? Lucky them. When I was a kid, we walked everywhere we couldn’t take our bikes.
As to those in the over 65 bracket, I can offer you some firsthand experience. No, we have not stopped being pedestrians. For many of us, it’s the opposite. Yes, our use of earbuds hasn’t risen to the level of everyone younger than us.
But don’t miss this: by virtue of a lifetime of experience, not all of which was good, and fully realizing we are no longer bulletproof, people like me tend to be very careful about hazards like busy intersections.
Being careful translates into some pretty basic behavior: waiting for the light to turn green, looking both ways, making eye contact with the oncoming driver who doesn’t look like they’re paying enough attention to what’s in front of them.
Pretty simple and basic stuff; something that you know. But at the end of the day, behavior is what keeps people safe or gets people hurt.
It will ever be thus.
Paul Balmert
April 2024
English 
Portuguese 
Spanish 
Russian 
French 
Italian