This Dutch town will soon have special traffic lights for zombie smartphone addicts

Smartphone users with their head dug deep into their smartphones pose a serious problem to the traffic authorities world over. Users who turn practically zombies when they are walking or driving are a threat not only to themselves but cause accidents which can turn fatal. The officials in the Dutch city Bodegraven have found out a way to control these zombie smartphone users by installing special traffic lights for them.

They are testing traffic lights that are created for pedestrians using mobile phones who are not looking at the road and not traffic. Officially dubbed as, the +Lichtlijn, which is developed by local firm HIG Traffic Systems consists of an LED lighting strip in the pavement, which is linked to existing traffic lights and changes colour simultaneously.

‘Social media, games, WhatsAp and music are major distractions in traffic,’ said town alderman Kees Oskam. ‘We may not be able to change this trend, but we can anticipate problems.’

Contrarily, a spokesman for the Dutch road safety organization Veilig Verkeer Nederland (VVN) said that the new lighting is not a solution and ‘what you are doing is rewarding bad behavior.’

HIG Traffic Systems hoping to sell the +Lichtlijn to other local authorities as well.

For those unfamiliar, authorities of a Chinese city have created special lanes for phone obsessed pedestrians to protect them. Similarly, the German city of Augsburg too has sunk LED light strips into the pavement to alert smartphone addicts.

Resource : Dutch News.