A city in South Korea, which has the world's highest smartphone penetration rate, has installed flickering lights and laser beams at a road crossing to warn "smartphone zombies" to look up and drivers to slow down, in the hope of preventing road deaths.
The designers of the system were prompted by a growing worry that pedestrians glued to their phones will drive up what is already some of the highest road fatality and injury rates among developed countries.
South Korea's state-run Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) believes its system of flickering lights mounted on zebra crossings can effectively warn both pedestrians and drivers.
'Smombie' alerts for phone-addict pedestrians in Korea | https://t.co/HUc1oMPzWh pic.twitter.com/RE8y5VlS9n
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In addition to red, yellow and blue LED lights on the pavement, "Smombies," coined name for smartphone zombies, will also be warned by laser beam projected from nearby power poles and an alert sent to the phones by an app.
The multi-dimensional warning system is operated by radar sensors and thermal cameras and comes with a price tag of 15 million won (€11,700) per crossing.
Drivers are alerted by the flashing lights mounted on the crossing, which have shown to be effective 83.4% of the time in the institute's tests involving about 1,000 vehicles.
In 2017, more than 1,600 pedestrians were killed in auto-related accidents, about 40% of total traffic fatalities, according to data from the country's Traffic Accident Analysis System (TAAS).
South Korea has the world's highest smartphone penetration rate, according to Pew Research Center, with about 94% of adults owning a smartphone in 2017, compared to 77% in the United States and 59% in Japan.
The 'smombie' warning system is currently installed only at one road crossing in Ilsan, a populous suburban city about 30km north west of the country's capital Seoul, but is expected to go nationwide, according to the institute.
