To think people who walk along buried in their phone...

[OnlyTheTitOfTheIceberg]

...should have all their tech confiscated and made to go and live in a remote Himalayan retreat with no wi-fi?

They're a menace! To themselves and to anyone in their path. This morning, not for the first time, I had to grab the back of someone's coat to stop them from walking out in front of an oncoming car because they were too immersed in their phone screen to notice.

Pull into the side FFS, or at least LOOK UP occasionally.

@lalafafa because I would have to find a pair that fits over my normal glasses? Because I don't want to and I would still get overwhelmed.

I am working with my therapist to try and reduce it but it's hard.

There's always a sense of sweet schadenfreude watching them get their comeuppance.

I was once following a man on his phone, walking past Old Bailey. He'd already veered into a few people and pissed them off and was making it difficult for me to get round, what with him weaving about and people coming the opposite way.

And then he trod in one of the biggest dog poos I have ever seen. I'm not sure whether he even managed to get out without a search and rescue team. ^^

I used to say fair enough but now if it’s during the hours of 9-5 and sometimes more I’m usually working while walking somewhere. So it’s work not just Facebook or anything.

My son annoys me that he can’t enjoy stuff like fireworks without looking at it through his phone recording but it’s his loss I guess!

Maybe you need to leave them to get run over preferably by a bus or HGV

No, don't do that ... if they end up in hospital they'll only sit yarping into the blasted thing on the ward, annoying everyone else

And I soemtimes have my headphones in because I’m having an episode and they help me get on wth normal life by blocking others out. I do genuinely apologise for that one though, I know it’s rude but I need it or I won’t do the food shopping or walk the dog

Add a scalding hot cup of coffee to the phone gazers at rush hour through the station. No hands, no eyes, no sense. Tossers.

This thread is funny! I can't comment about anyone else's behaviour though. I once walked into a bollard because I was so engrossed in a leaflet about mindfulness.

If someone comes towards me, head down staring at a screen, not looking where they’re going, I make a point of not swerving out of their way but continue walking directly at them. It usually does the trick

I'm not big. I'm short, stocky, pointy and perpetually pissed off. . .

I know this is lighthearted but it has made me a little sad. Should be shot? Tossers? Jeez.

I do this, my social anxiety is awful and quite often on a bad day (luckily not super frequently) having my phone on me and 'burying my head' in it is the only way I can get from A to B and feel relatively calm about being in a busy place, outside etc. I have limited vision due to a medical condition and an invisible illness that causes several difficulties physically and neurologically so tend to track my journey on google maps so I don't get lost or waste energy going a longer way. Listening to music and having earphones in also helps with noise disturbance. I look completely 'normal' and am well put together.

Rest assured I am generally thinking about nothing but what i look like to other people and am doing an awful lot of worrying I will bump into someone (or get hit by a car) with or without my phone.

Not everyone is a social media obsessed snowflake sucked into the digital world and absent the ability to appreciate the real one.

I just run right into them, it's good sport!

I also run right into people who are walking more than two abreast and expect me to walk in the street so they can carry on as such when passing me.

Good luck trying to bump into me when I’m looking at my phone. I’m more aware of my surroundings when I’m playing Pokémon go than when I’m talking to my 4yo DD.

They will be first up.against the wall, come my revolution.

This....

If someone walks into me because I'm not looking, then it's the other person's fault, because they were looking and they should have seen me

Mums with one sprog in a buggy and another hanging off one of the handles, while she is busy faffing on her phone annoy me.
Ds1 doesn't need a phone to be able to walk into random immovable objects, hes walked into lampposts, road signs and the occasional bollard, which is just the right height to cause a squeaky voice.

I live in a university town. This happens a lot here.
I watched a woman step into the road behind a car reversing into a parking space. She just kept walking, eyes fixed on her phone. A cyclist had to swerve round her too.
I use a walking stick and have adopted the policy of just walking in a straight line. Dodging round phone users is exhausting. Only had a couple of people actually walk into me but a lot of near misses.

After many near accidents where I have had to swerve out of the way of a phone-zombie, I've gone zero tolerance and now I allow the collision to happen.

This choice was easy to make after I moved from manual wheelchair to power chair - in the manual if I hit them it's likely to hurt me as much or more, than them.

In the power chair that is no longer the case and according to my last victim, 'OW YOU FUCKING HIT ME THAT HURTS'... mm. And he dropped his phone and smashed the screen. Ah well.

I even scored a hit from behind from one... he was walking behind me, gazing into his phone... I stopped, he didn't and he dropped his phone into my lap. Apparently I shouldn't be allowed on the pavement in 'that thing'....

I'm another one with mobility issues. Walk with two sticks and trying to dodge these idiots is infuriating

Have taken to loudly shouting "Wake up!" when they get near. The startled looks are very amusing

I walk along reading my phone, and if anyone doesn’t like it they can just fuck off and mind their own business.

I walk along reading my phone, and if anyone doesn’t like it they can just fuck off and mind their own business.

Well, as long as I can fuck off in front of you instead of being stuck behind that’s absolutely fine, Hercules.

“ Well, as long as I can fuck off in front of you instead of being stuck behind that’s absolutely fine, Hercules.”

Absolutely. I loathe slow moving pedestrians, I walk at the correct pace.

I’m a slow moving pedestrian because I have mobility issues - I do try to be aware of people around me, so I can move out of the way if necessary.

We are all different, though, so I think it is a little unfair to refer to your chosen pace as the ‘correct’ one, @StreetwiseHerculese. Some of us genuinely can’t walk fast, but would still like to be tolerated when we venture out in public.

You mean almost everyone? Yup, they're twats.

“ I’m a slow moving pedestrian because I have mobility issues - I do try to be aware of people around me, so I can move out of the way if necessary.”

You absolutely get a pass. I’m much more inconvenienced when out and about by entirely able-bodied slow moving pedestrians who also do thinks like stopping without warning. There are a lot of people who just dawdle around at snails pace, ad it annoys me, because surely they have something to do, or at least they should understand that other people have things to do.