South Korea introduces high-tech crosswalks to warn ‘smartphone zombies’ of traffic

Smartphones have numerous pros but also many cons, one of which being people so indulged in them that they normally wander around in traffic while they are engrossed in their phone. This is what South Korea aims to change by using high-tech crosswalks.

The South Korean city of Ilsan has installed high-tech zebra crossings that will use lights, lasers and an app to alert the ‘smartphone zombies’ pedestrians that they are about to be hit by a car and will also warn cars to slow down.

“Increasing number of smombie [smartphone zombie] accidents have occurred in pedestrian crossings, so these zombie lights are essential to prevent these pedestrian accidents,” Kim Jong-hoon, a researcher who helped design the system said.

CNET reported, the system detects pedestrians with radar sensors and thermal cameras and then warns them with laser beam projections on the ground and flashing red, yellow and blue LED lights. Not only this, an accompanying app also cautions those smombies whenever the crosswalk lights are triggered with a message reading ‘wait, a car is coming’.

According to a research, South Korea was titled to have the world’s highest smartphone penetration rate, with 95% of the population owning a smartphone. The system, designed by the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, is eventually expected to go nationwide, having the ability to save millions of the smombies from road accidents, reported Futurism.