Would Texting Lanes Provide Safer Texting While Walking?

The city of Antwerp has its sidewalks outfitted with a perhaps much-needed public measure

Jason Brick

Antwerp has instituted a new safety measure in the form of “text walking lanes” for pedestrians occupied by their phones. These lanes are in the middle of the street, clearly designated, and follow the example of similar programs in Washington D.C.

This is not a public safety measure, but rather a marketing move by local mobile firm Mlab. Mlab is a data based company that tests out connections between phones and the Internet. If there are issues with the connection, they work to find the source of the problems. Their goal is to advance network research and empower the public with information.





Mlab placed these texting lanes throughout the city to raise awareness on how often phone addiction may place others in danger. They want observers to question how much it means to send that text message while you’re walking, and how important it is to keep what’s going on around you in more than just your peripheral vision.

Despite serving the mobile industry, Mlab shares some of the dangers texting while walking can lead to, “This causes collisions with poles or other pedestrians. You could, unknowingly, even be endangering your own life while you text-walk when you cross the street without looking up.”



While these lanes are a marketing stunt, they could also be legitimately needed in our constantly connected world—or at least open a legitimately necessary public conversation. Texting while driving and walking has exceeded doing either drunk as a cause of death for the past three years. The lanes beg the question of how far phones have become everything people circle around, and whether their ubiquity does more harm than good.

Now, if only somebody would do an international marketing initiative about people who stand still on moving walkways at the airport.