Honolulu wants to ban cellphone walking. Here's 8 petty laws they could pass instead.
If you are a human with a cell phone, odds are you've broken this law that could soon be passed in Hawaii.
On Wednesday, in an extraordinarily ambitious effort to make Hawaii's streets safer, the Honolulu City Council passed a bill that prohibits pedestrians from staring down at their cell phones while crossing the street. Yes, you read that correctly. Hawaii essentially wants to prohibit people from texting and walking.
HA, good luck with that.
As CNN reported, if you're caught staring at your phone, in violation of Bill 6, you could be fined anywhere from $15 to $99 unless it's a 911-worthy emergency. Sure it's in the best interest of safety, but the proposed law begs the following massive question.
Q: Is this really necessary?
A: Hell freaking no.
According to councilman Ernie Martin, who voted against the bill, the world has other far more pressing issues that should take priority over walking and texting, like, uh, homelessness.
Rather than enforce a law, he suggests a public awareness campaign via social media. Sounds way more fun, and hey, people could even learn about it on their phones while simultaneously walking.
Not to mention, this is not a thing that's going to work.
Do you think people are going to put down their phones at crosswalks and give up valuable seconds that could be spent potentially right-swiping their soulmate? No. Do you really think anyone is going to resist responding to Slack messages from their boss on-the-go, thereby shattering the illusion that they're already diligently working from their desks instead of running 20 minutes late? LOL good one.
We text, we walk, we multi-task. Get over it.
Other petty laws the world could use instead
While we're on the topic of petty laws, there are SO many pieces of legislation we'd rather see passed.
Here are eight other laws that should be enforced:
1. Don’t take up the entire sidewalk with your squad when people are trying to pass, OMG.
2. Don't you dare eat food in a way food was not intended to be eaten. (No biting string cheese, no eating pizza crust-first, no ice cubes in your cereal. JFC, people.)
3. No leaving shopping carts in parking spots like an a-hole instead of taking 40 seconds to return them.
4. Don’t stand over the yellow line at airport baggage claim. Wait for your damn luggage a respectable distance away from the belt so when you grab it you don't wind up taking out three innocent bystanders.
5. No listening to audio in public without headphones. (Same goes for having conversations on speaker phone.)
6. Thou shalt not post spoilers online.
7. You must clean gym equipment after sweating all over the damn place.
8. Cashiers who hand you change on top of your bills so that it inevitably slides off and embarrasses you should PAY the legal price.
What the fresh hell, Hawaii?
According to CNN, Brandon Elefante, the Honolulu city councilman who introduced the bill, got this idea from high school students, so you know it's gotta be brilliant.
"These high school groups were concerned for their peers being distracted while crossing the streets and looking at their phones instead of looking both ways," Elefante said. "The advancement of technology can sometimes be a distraction and cause people to not pay attention."
Since the city council successfully passed the bill, the fate of cellphone addicts in Hawaii now rests in the hands of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell. He has 10 business days to make this final life-changing decision.
Choose wisely, sir.
Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.
