Serious
injuries to pedestrians listening to headphones have more than tripled
in six years, according to new research from the University of Maryland
School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center in
Baltimore. In many cases, the cars or trains are sounding horns that the
pedestrians cannot hear, leading to fatalities in nearly three-quarters
of crashes. Researchers reviewed 116 accident cases from 2004 to 2011
in which injured pedestrians were documented to be using headphones.
Seventy-percent of the accidents resulted in death to the pedestrian.
More than two-thirds of victims were male and under the age of 30. More
than half of the moving vehicles involved in the accidents were trains
and nearly a third of the vehicles reported sounding some type of
warning horn prior to the crash. The increased incidence of accidents
over the years closely corresponds to documented rising popularity of
gadgets with headphones.
