Two thirds of Canadians want distracted walking laws: poll

Forget about texting behind the wheel: Canadians are frustrated with pedestrians keeping their nose close to their smartphones.

Two thirds of us (66 per cent) would support distracted walking laws, according to a new survey, while eighty per cent of us 55 or over would be okay with forbidding the use of hand held phones while crossing the street.

Politicians in both Toronto and Vancouver recently contemplated banning the use of mobile devices while in the “travelled portion of a roadway,” but Calgary officials have not yet warmed up to the idea.

“There’s a lot of Canadians who have been witnessing close calls: somebody who’s texting and essentially crosses when he’s not supposed to,” Mario Canseco, VP of Public Affairs for Insights West said. “It’s not only something that is affecting drivers but it’s also affecting people who are walking to work.”

But while nine in ten Canadians also support distracted driving laws, only half us believe they’ve been effective.

“I think one of the problems is that even though we have all of these regulations in the books, we continue to see people everyday who are texting while they drive and there’s no officers around, there’s no one there to give them tickets. You start to wonder whether the legislation is actually working,” Canseco said.

He says it’s interesting that Albertans are the biggest critics.

“You know, it’s one of the places that has had legislation for the longest time, and we do seem to look at the situation in Alberta in a very different way. There’s a lot of people who are dissatisfied – they don’t think that the law is actually working the way it should. There’s almost half (49 per cent) who say that it has been ineffective.”

Canseco says the issue seems to lie with perceived enforcement, rather than the rules themselves.