Normally when you need to wait at a crossing because it’s red you take out your phone to waste some time. But you have to be quite anxious and look up if it’s already green or not, otherwise you miss the green light.
But they help you out with that here in Korea by building in the traffic light into the curb. You’re looking down on your phone and see the red line left and right of it. Once it changes to green you immediately are aware of it because it’s in your field of view constantly.
Great invention!
I took the background picture just outside and put the stock picture hands with a phone on top of it so you can easier visualize it how it looks like in reality.
Everyone is boomering about the damn kids these days and their phones, but this seems like a cool extra bit accessibility that happens to help people on their phones.
This just makes me sad.
The entirety of it. The fact it needs to be invented and installed but what’s worse is that this person thinks it’s a good idea.
It’s very concerning.
Like, I’d be fine if this was helpful to people with disabilities, but I have no idea how this would help anyone
The last thing I want to focus my attention on when I’m in traffic is my phone screen.
Everyone needs to be dropped in a place with no internet for 6 months.
Problem solved.
Drop them there with shovels tho, cuz there will be a lot of dead bodies of people who starved when they couldn’t order food. Actually the shovels would only be necessarily for a short time, as a ton of them would be left lying around next to the bodies.
Hah, fair point. How about “Dropped in a place with a functional society and no internet, that, yea, magically exists somewhere.”?
In that case I would take my modern device with me that’s loaded up with gigabytes of music from the last hundred years, and amaze some king or queen with my magic.
Says the guy with 1386 comments on his own instance of a fringe social media software :D
Yup, that’s me. But I also put it away regularly to experience everything else the world has to offer. Sometimes for pretty extended periods of time, too. And you know, not walk out into traffic.
Do your crossings not make noise? When ours (south Australia) is ready to cross it’s very noisy and obvious
Fun fact that you probably know: the background ‘ticking’ in the chorus of Bad Guy by Billie Eilish is the sound made by traffic lights in Sydney
Nppe
I like to look around at the cars going by, examine the infrastructure around the intersection like the nerd I am, and when the countdown starts (the crosswalk signals usually have a countdown until they switch to “GO”) I’m looking back and forth between the signal and traffic to see who’s stopping and who’s trying to beat the light.
I’m not about to trust my life to a signal when so many drivers are too busy on their phones to notice the big lights in front of them shining a different color than it did a second ago.
Finland had a solution for this long before smartphones even existed. Pedestrian traffic lights here play different tones depending on whether it’s red or green, allowing blind or visually impaired people to safely navigate the city.
And one city (Pori) has fricking LASERS projecting a red line on the path when the light is red
Yeah, bringing more accessibility is very good even if it is quite annoying if you live nearby I guess.
In Scandinavia the boxes have microphones and listens to the ambient sound and lowered and raises its sound accordingly. Some even detect humans around it so if noone are around they turn barely audible. Really nice design.
In your country there isn’t a sound for when you can cross?
Sadly no. Actually there is a button sometimes, but I couldn’t figure what it is for. It’s not for blind people because it doesn’t make a sound.
What do the visually impaired do?
I’ve been living here for 4 years and basically never seen any disabled people. Perhaps one or two wheel chairs but otherwise nobody. Same with all the parking spots for disabled, they are all empty all the times.
From what I gather disabled people are mostly kept inside. From https://www.goisc.org/englishblog/2022/5/12/the-struggle-never-ends-the-apr-20-protests-against-disability-discrimination
In Korea, it seems people with disabilities only exist on April 20. Only on this day do politicians flock to the official ceremony to display their concern as famous singers perform on stage; as awards are handed to those who “overcame” their disability and are living like non-disabled people; and as stories of “normal people” who “helped” the disabled touch the hearts of many. However, once the day is over, people with disabilities are forgotten once again, and business goes on as usual, centered on non-disabled people. Disabled people who cannot “overcome” their disability and live like non-disabled people find themselves unable to travel freely, get education, or get work as before. Even worse, they might be confined to their homes or to facilities for the disabled under the pretense of “protection” just awaiting their deaths.
Normally when you need to wait at a crossing because it’s red you take out your phone to waste some time.
Is that considered normal these days? Jesus.
Exactly my thought, Cant people be without their phones for one second 😅
Are you just raw dogging walking in public no phone nothing??
It’s in my pocket, but I don’t trust cars. Been hit too many times for that. It’s only happened once while being a pedestrian, but that was enough for me, thanks.
Sometimes you may have to wait for thirty or forty seconds. You could literally die several times!
Usually just music, does that count?
I don’t know where you live, but here in Seoul nobody takes out their phone out at the traffic light because most of the people have it already in the hand while walking.
See this random video I just googled of a crosswalk in Gangnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeadHl7ugmk
Yeah, that’s a problem.
Yup, everybody looking down at their pocket computers and fucking up their posture.
If you hold your phone in front of you you get bonus arm training
And impact protection.
It seems it’s not just in Asia, random London video shows also half of the people walking with phone in the hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTxyohQ8jN0&t=11
( Other commenter commented thesame about Tokyo.l
Some “smart” systems extend to car and bicycle users too.
That’s pretty neat. It annoys me here that newer crossings tend not to have the beep, and the lights are on a post on the same side - which would be fine but you can’t always look at the light and the road, so sometimes it goes green and I don’t notice. Having them on the road threshold would make it a bit more obvious I think, even if you’re not on a phone.
I’m glad I seem to be not the only one to be disgusted by the concept. Like, wtf? If you are addicted to the phone so much that for the couple dozen of seconds you wait, a ground light is “helpful” for you, you belong to psychiatry/addictoligy department of your nearest hospital. Jesus fucking christ.
Very elitist of you to know so much about other peoples psyche.
Yes. That’s exactly what “elitism” means. 🙄
In my opinion it wouldn’t work everywhere - I was surprised to see how orderly people were in Seoul when I was there a couple years ago. No matter how crowded, everyone was standing in lines, waiting - even if they were watching Netflix or YouTube in the meantime.
Here, we are actively warned against using phones or headsets when crossing the streets (signs painted on the street), exactly because some drivers watch TikTok and whatnot WHILE driving. I find it sad that here pedestrians have to accommodate careless drivers.
Nevertheless, I like the idea, just hope it won’t be a thing here before we can get things to be a bit more orderly on the streets.
Literally nothing works everywhere.
Fair enough
During those rare moments you’re outside, it’s called the “ground.”
It’s a neat idea, but looking down at your phone is probably not a great idea when standing so close to a busy road.
what else is there to do? be bored for a couple minutes?
Yes.
I dunno, think about something. There must be something worth thinking about in your life. Or is it only cheap, meaningless dopamine you get from staring at your phone?
