‘Smombies’ get new curb-level dipped beams

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The Darwin Awards may receive fewer nominees from South Korea.

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The city of Seoul has begun placing traffic lights at curb level, specifically so that concerned pedestrians looking at their phones can be safer when crossing the street.

Red / yellow / green traffic indicators, which typically require someone to look ahead, have been transformed into LED lights on the ground hugging the sidewalk, or at eye level for someone using a phone.

It’s an approach to protect so-called “Smombies,” a word that means smartphone zombies, from walking into traffic while distracted.

About 94% of adults in South Korea own a cell phone. Among developed countries, South Korea also has a high death rate on the roads, with pedestrians accounting for about half of those deaths.

TikTok user @naturalkorean posted a video of an intersection in Seoul, showing the new LED lights on the curb where people looking down will still see them.

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His video shows people crossing without looking up from their phones.

Newsweek reports that @naturalkorean wrote, “South Korea has streetlights on the ground so you can keep looking at your phone,” and then moved the camera to look at friends crossing the street.

His video has amassed over 200,000 likes, but people are divided on the new lights.

Some see them as indulging tech junkies, while others feel that the lights are a sign of the times and much needed.

Lights are not the only technology designed to stop traffic accidents and death. In 2019, some intersections were equipped with thermal cameras that detect approaching people (against the light) and turn on warning lights for drivers on both sides of the intersection.

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An alert is also sent to the pedestrian’s phone to prevent them from walking into moving traffic.

In 2020, Seoul experienced a significant decrease in the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents, the Daily Mail reports . The numbers fell from 247 deaths in 2019 to 218 in 2020.

Pedestrians accounted for 115 of the deaths in 2020, more than half of the total.

For many years, Seoul has tried to make the city pedestrian-friendly. The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) introduced the “Seoul Vision for a Pedestrian-Friendly City” in 2013, 10 Projects Designed to improve the pedestrian environment.

The projects, some similar to the changes Vision Zero is making here in Toronto, include pedestrian-only streets, pedestrian-friendly areas, introduction and expansion of pedestrian priority highways, vehicle speed limits, improvements to the traffic signals for pedestrians and creation of pedestrian lanes in the center.

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