New Study Reveals Distracted Pedestrians Pose Serious Personal Injury Risk

With more people than ever tuning into mobile devices and tuning out of the world around them, an increasing number of distracted pedestrians are being found at fault in Tampa car accidents. In many cases, these pedestrians were struck while wearing headphones after drivers attempted to alert them with their vehicle’s horn before the collision.

According to a study released by the University of Maryland, the number of pedestrians who have been seriously injured in a vehicular accident while wearing headphones has seen a three fold increase in the last six years. Approximately 70 percent of these cases have resulted in the death of the pedestrian.

My Fox Tampa Bay recently covered a story in which a local pedestrian was seriously injured on Florida Avenue in Tampa, Florida in just this manner. The man was wearing headphones when he stepped into the street and was struck by a driver that detectives believe did not have enough time to react.

The University of Maryland reports that roughly two thirds of the pedestrians included in the headphone accident study were males under the age of 30. The results of this study were recently published in the journal Injury Prevention.