Need valentines for that special day? Look no further.

Edit: Well, it’s probably worth noting that, while looking further is unnecessary, looking at work is not advised. Some valentines rated T for suggestive themes.

Oh no! The Law!

Gaming can help cut into a boring walk, but I can actually see where this law is valid. There’s a fairly long line of research about the interaction between cell phones and driving that demonstrates that accident rates for drivers with cell phones aren’t much better than rates for drunk drivers.

It’s easy to think of those findings in terms of driving and forget that they’re really about people, though. The problem is really an attention issue. It takes a certain amount of attention to hold a conversation with another person, and when that person isn’t right next to you, they can’t notice the bus that’s about to kill you and shut up. So, to some extent, the research applies to pedestrians as well as drivers. It takes attention to play video games, too. Worse yet, it requires your eyes most of the time as well.

That doesn’t mean that every time you’re playing Advance Wars and crossing an intersection you’ll be killed, but maybe .05% of people will. Cram enough people together in one spot, like New York, and the deaths start adding up. It’s only a matter of time before some politician decides to do something about it. It earns money for the city and the death numbers go down. Heck, maybe it saves your life. You’d never know because you saw the bus and didn’t get splattered instead of gaming your way right into the bumper.

The numbers we’re talking about here probably aren’t very big, so it’s really up to personal judgment whether or not the law is worth it. It’s analogous to the speed limit–you raise it to 70mph, a few more people die than did at 65 mph. You have to weigh the benefits of speed against the death toll to find your happy place in between.

I think that if there is a problem, it’s that law is a blunt instrument. Politicians who don’t really read the research don’t know that the radio (or an iPod, or any other passive activity) doesn’t demand your attention in the same way that interaction (like conversation or gaming) does. So they pass a law that says, “Cross the street with an active doodad, get a fine.” I don’t know if there’s a good fix for that problem, but it’d be nice if there were.

In sum, I think there’s some validity to the law, it’s just a little indiscriminate.