Distracted Walking, Cycling, and Driving

[tomh009]

It's an opinion backed up by physics, statistics, and even your anecdote.  Stats show walking injuries, unlike vehicle collisions, have not gone up with mobile phone use. Physics dictates I am more able to maintain situational awareness because the flow of information is much slower, and physics also dictates the possibility of harm is vastly lower. As for your anecdote, what happened when the person walked into you, they were embarrassed, and you were annoyed, as opposed to you being hospitalized or worse, if they were in a car.

I don't know how "walking injuries" are counted.

But certainly one of the key risks of distracted walking is that of a pedestrian-motor vehicle collision. A person who is not aware of his or her surroundings may walk into the way of an approaching motor vehicle. Yes, it's only injuring the pedestrian, but that's still an injury, or worse.