One state lawmaker wants you to pay attention when crossing crosswalks or pay up. Chalmette Republican Representative Mike Bayham has filed a bill that would prohibit people from looking at their cell phones while crossing crosswalks. Bayham says it’s a modern-day safety issue.
“Sometimes they don’t even check to see if they have the ‘Walk’ light on or the ‘Do Not Walk’ lights on, and they never look up. And you don’t know if the vehicle coming is paying attention.,” Bayham explained.
And if the driver also has his face in his cell phone while driving – which is now illegal in the state, thanks to the work of the legislature last year – that’s a recipe for disaster. Bayham notes that pedestrians are defenseless against motor vehicles.
“Obviously, if a car hits another car, it’s pretty bad. If a car hits a pedestrian, they’re going to be seriously injured, if not killed,” Bayham said.
Bayham says his goal is not to make criminals out of those pedestrians – under his bill, the infraction would be a misdemeanor penalized with a fine of just $25.
“The goal of this is really not even so much to penalize people, but to disincentivize folks from being distracted while going across crosswalks,” Bayham noted.
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