There should be a special "lane" for people who are text-messaging while walking on the sidewalk. This would be a painted strip that you could follow easily out of the corner of your eye while looking straight downwards. It would have signs painted on it, such as "approaching an intersection" or the name of the cross street.
This would get the text-walkers out of the main area of the sidewalk, and think of how ridiculous they would all look, walking home single-file :)-- phundug, Sep 20 2011 Heads down dislpay. Head_20Down_20Display [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 22 2011] It would be far more socially useful to have the "guide lines" unlabelled, and arranged so as to direct their users off precipitous drops, or straight on to busy roadways or rail lines.-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2011 should be combined with texting driving lanes.-- FlyingToaster, Sep 20 2011 should be combined with bowling lanes, too...-- xandram, Sep 20 2011 I don't think we should be allocating time and resources to help people text while walking. But I would also like to give it a + because it would give me a convenient location to place small trip-over-able objects.-- DIYMatt, Sep 20 2011 Don't think of this for today, think of it as an invention for 20 years in the future, when everyone, even those vehemently opposed now, will be happily texting on their way home :)-- phundug, Sep 20 2011 Of course, we'll all be working and socializing from home by then, so maybe the idea is moot.-- phundug, Sep 20 2011 Potential for comedy in many British towns, where there is a profusion of hatchways in the footpaths. These hatchways lead to cellars, in which texters may be stored for future use.
A modern upgrade to the cellar hatch might use a device which detects the activity of the approaching mobile phone (using the same technology as TV detector vans :-) ). The device then activates a motor which opens the hatch, collecting the hapless texter and closing again to avoid inadvertant collection of the blind, wild animals, weather etc.
(+) provided there is some additional hazard in the testing lane and stiff penalties for texting outside it.-- Twizz, Sep 21 2011 If people will still be texting in 20 years...yikes. I was hoping for telepathy texting by then!-- xandram, Sep 21 2011 Question is, will they be walking anymore then, or simply riding around in handicap scooters?
Maybe we'll evolve to walking on our overdeveloped thumbs.-- RayfordSteele, Sep 21 2011 //20 years from now, people won't be texting with their thumbs anymore// Agreed: after 20 years of texting, the arthritis will be awful.-- mouseposture, Sep 21 2011 I'm kind of a texting virgin <blushes> and I rarely engage in telephonication of any kind if I can avoid it.Sometimes I'll get this funny tingly feeling in my loins when my phone vibrates but I just ignore that until it passes.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 22 2011 How about a texting app that displays a live view of what the inbuilt camera sees, allowing the user to text and "see" at the same time without taking their eye off their device?-- zen_tom, Sep 22 2011 cellphone periscopes?-- xandram, Sep 22 2011 [xandram] precisely! Heads down, yet fully aware of their surroundings.-- zen_tom, Sep 22 2011 Someone posted that.Ah, t'was [lurch]. [link]-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 22 2011 Somebody with the right color of paint and a twisted imagination could have a lot of fun with this...-- Alterother, Sep 22 2011 random, halfbakery