Hong Kong government wants to look after its citizens more, especially the group of "zombies" immersed in their cellphones while in street.
This is why the government decided to put traffic lights on the ground too.
Bloomberg reported that the authorities installed LED lights that cover the crosspoints with red lights with the hope that the people looking at their devices will see the illuminated sidewalk and remember they need to stop."
"With the penetration of handheld smart devices, pedestrians using signalised crossings are more prone to pay more concentrations on their mobile devices with their heads nodding downwards, and less attention to the traffic signals," the Transport Department of Hong Kong said on its website.
"To draw pedestrians' awareness of the traffic signal and upkeep safety at the crossings, we have launched a trial by installing auxiliary devices to remind pedestrians not to cross the road when the 'red man' is lit."
The number of pedestrians that died on Hong Kong roads has decreased in the last three years, as it was 57 in 2019 and 55 last year, giving a rate of 0,74 deaths for every 100,000 residents. This is compared to the death rate for pedestrians of 1,4 for every 100,000 persons in New York in 2019.
Hendrik Tieben, the director of the School of Architecture of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, welcomed the practice but warned that multiple crosspoints across the city that still do not have any lights continue to be a source of danger.
"One of my biggest questions is the risk of pedestrians with cell phones at unsignaled crossings," Tieben, a local advocate for reducing the speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour on streets where pedestrians and cyclists mix with traffic, said.
"Those are the most dangerous."
