For nearly five years it has been illegal to operate an electronic device while driving in California. In 2012, shortly after the first safety laws had been enacted, a UC Berkeley study reported that deaths blamed on cell phone users had dropped drastically by 47 percent. In 2014, a separate study published in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice reported that California’s cellphone ban hadn’t decreased accidents at all. While it’s unlikely California will enact any “no texting while walking” laws, a tragic accident in San Diego will certainly add fuel to either sides of the debate on California’s cellphone traffic laws.
On Friday, December 25th and just before sunset, a 33-year old man fell 60 feet to his death while walking along Sunset Cliffs. Now lifeguards who were on the scene say they saw the man possibly distracted by a cellphone or camera before accidentally walking off the edge of a cliff.
“Witnesses stated seeing someone distracted by an electronic device and he just fell over the edge,” San Diego lifeguard Bill Bender said in an interview with KNSD-TV. The man “wasn’t watching where he was walking, he was looking down at the device in his hands.”
Three Good Samaritans immediately made their way down the cliff to rescue the man. Witnesses say two of the rescuers were surfers who administered CPR until rescue personnel arrived on the scene. Medics soon declared the man dead on the scene.
