Distracted Walking, Cycling, and Driving

[ijmorlan]

And certainly, no distracted ped is more impaired  than a blind or ped with other impairments who should be able to safely cross the roads .

I mostly agree with everything you say, with the exception of this statement. Depending on the nature of the distraction, it can be all-consuming, taking up all of the person’s awareness, meaning that in effect they aren’t receiving any input from anything around them. By contrast, I think most blind people who have practiced are extremely aware of their non-seeing sensory inputs, primarily hearing, and are probably amazingly aware of what is going on around them.

But, similar to what you are saying, none of that means we need “impaired walking” laws. The laws we are talking about are supposed to be in response to behaviour that is dangerous to others; it is easy to drive in a way that is dangerous to other drivers and to nearby non-drivers but much more difficult to walk in a way that poses a significant danger to others. Beating up on “distracted” pedestrians through the legal system is in practice mostly just another way of bullying a less privileged group.