Pedestrian Safety by Design
We all know how captivating our phones can be, especially when trying to get from point A to point B. As we are told often, the attention span of human kind is rapidly decreasing which has, in turn had us turning to your handheld devices for entertainment on the go. An Australian design firm has come up with an attractive and functional way to keep us all a little bit more aware of the world around us. Smart Tactile Paving™ by Büro North takes the walking man and the red hand down to earth so that the rising number in pedestrian deaths reverses itself.
As you will see in the video below, this genius design firm has brought the pedestrian cues to the place we tend to be looking most, at our feet (or should I say phones?). The tiles currently used to signal to the blind or deaf the start and end of a crosswalk has been reworked to include LED lighting to correspond with the red hand and green walking person. So as a pedestrian looks down at their phone there are additional visual cues to stop them if necessary. As the firm mentions, the technology and wiring is already there so why not take advantage of it?!
