JR East and three mobile phone carriers this week started a campaign in Tokyo to caution commuters against "aruki smaho" (using smartphones while walking), which has recently caused many accidents and trouble on train platforms.
Posters at stations warn commuters of the dangers of using mobile devices while walking on train platforms, saying they could knock other commuters onto the tracks.
According to JR East, the number of people who have filed complaints about smartphone users on platforms surpassed 100 in 2014, compared to only a few cases in 2012, Fuji TV reported.
About 25% of the complaints concerned being bumped into by smartphone users. There have also been reported cases of commuters getting into fights after some smartphone users did not look where they were going and brushed against other passengers, causing them to drop their bags or other belongings, causing damage.
Some of the people complaining said the smartphone users often did not apologize but just kept going, JR East said.
© Japan Today
19 Comments
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inkochi
Only on station platforms?!?!?!?
How about on roads, in cars, on bicycles, on sidewalk pavements too!!!
On this point, there is a nice little earner for governments in Australia: motorbike cops with Go Pro cameras on their helmets filming and photographing people driving using mobile phones and hundreds of drivers getting caught at well over a hundred bucks a pop. Maybe a solution to Japan's public debt crisis right there!
gogogo
@inkochi: that would involve the police actually working... not going to happen.
nath
Where's the news in this? I've been seeing these nagara-aruki campaigns for years here!
blvtzpk
Well, I never!!! The cheek of some people!!!
Alex Einz
Fine em, heavily too!
gaijin6000
Using them on bicycles is totally dangerous.
smartacus
I sympathize with the complaints in the last sentence. That's happened to me many times. I have seen someone walking right toward, glued to their smartphone and don't even look to see if there is anyone in their path, so I have to move out of the way. Then they keep walking as if nobody was even in front of them.
edojin
Saw this on the news on TV. At the time they were showing the announcement on a bulletin board, passersby were busy looking at their ketai ... and not even looking at the poster. So ... guess it will be a tough haul to get everybody tuned in to this JR program ...
DaDude
So if this is the case, do I have the right to throw their phone on the track in self-defense?
BigCeltic1977
This is a serious problem. But what can be done? Posters won't work, because the smartphone zombies won't see them. Makers fitting some kind of disabling device would work. A friend of mine told me that he watches a movie on his phone while walking to the station. Very stupid. Everyone has a mail that needs to be answered on the go occasionally but these zombies never look up. I saw people in the airport doing it for God's sake! But then you also see people doing while crossing Shibuya scramble. If you need to reply or check just stop and stand to the side. Common sense.
smithinjapan
Smart phones are not to blame any more than handbags are to blame; it's stupid people. This morning I was nearly bumped into by a woman searching for her train pass in her handbag while walking towards the gate. I saw her, and moved out of the way, but make no mistake if I had not we would have collided. So, are they going to make signs asking you not to walk and look in your bags?
How about this: a campaign which simply tells you to pay attention to where you're walking and be courteous of others. I've never been bumped into by someone walking and using a cell phone, nor have I bumped into anyway. I HAVE been bumped into by people looking at maps, guidebooks, staring at the ground, looking at bank books coming out of the bank, rummaging through bags while walking, looking in mirrors, staring at the sky, talking and looking at their partners, etc. Did they all stop and say sorry? No, though some did.
And seriously, suggesting they look at signs while they walk is just as bad. The people that will see the signs are those not staring at something else.
Yubaru
And I would believe that there have to be at least 1000 or more times that crap like this happens that doesnt get reported.
I have run into plenty of people on the streets and on the mono-rail here in Okinawa who use their smart-phones and many start to get upset or angry until they realize they they have to band their necks way back to look me in the eye and then have to deal with a foreign looking person who speaks Japanese and weighs around 130 KG at roughly 200CM.
Humorous on some days, just plain annoying most of the time. I dont want to hurt anyone!
Disillusioned
I've seen it! About six months ago I saw a mid-30's woman walk straight off the platform while she was so engrossed in her mind-numbingly boring game of 'join the jewels'. She walked past me on the wrong side of the visually-impared path and about three meters later she walked straight off the platform. Once again we see the Japanese authorities applying a bandaid to a wound without addressing the cause of the illness. This is a serious addiction of people who cannot put their phones down. I may spend an hour or so a day on my phone checking emails, news, [Japan Today] and Facebook at convenient times throughout the day, but these clowns have their faces pasted to their phones every hour of every day. It's an illness! Sadly, I make a point of walking into people who have their faces pasted to their phones. I've been abused for it too. However, I don't really care as long as I have made these people realise what a selfish loser they are being!
Thunderbird
zombies everywhere in Osaka. I'm not totally against "aruki-sumaho", as long as you're walking on a broad sidewalk and put the phone away when crossing the streets. But the dudes here in Osaka.... rush hour and the zombie stand still in front of the train door while everybody is trying to get out. Where's the common sense??? Watchin these platform zombies lately made me think twice about the "human accident" announcements, probably it isn't all that much "suicides" as I thought before.
misunderstood
A good business in Japan would be a neck brace business, or perhaps some one can come up with a sensor on a smart phone to let the zombies know they are about to bump into someone
veejay
the only way to learn is to be taught. everyone that walks while using a device or some paper gets a shoulder. eat it
Thunderbird
Osaka, 6:30am and the same thing happens again. Crowds waiting the train on the platform, the train arrives, door opens and the two zombies simply can't put their damn cellphones away for a second sloooowly get into the train while everybody else apparently pissed just wait.. No wonder so many problems between commuters x zombies in Japan.. a guy was just charged for pushing a man into the tracks after a discussion over the man's cellphone.
Dennis Bauer
The more you know! How about common sense? :P