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Alex Cabrero reporting With all the outdoor activities Utah has to offer, there are certainly plenty of ways to get hurt. One way that is relatively new could be avoided with just an ounce of common sense and awareness. It's an injury doctors in London are seeing more and more.
Put a TV camera in front of teenage girls and you'll get plenty of giggles. Then give them cell phones, and they'll forget about the TV camera. Brittni Gibson is known as the texting queen in her circle of friends. One hundred or so texts a day is common.
She says, "It's just an easy way to communicate, and you can do it at school, and you can do it wherever you are."
Apparently, it's not so easy to do on London sidewalks. A recent report in England has doctors saying they're starting to see a huge increase in broken noses, cuts on the head, and knee and leg bruises because people keep walking into things while texting. That's why they started putting foam pads around poles.
London resident Tony Armstrong said, "We've got so many road signs, we've got so many telephone boxes and bus stops that are being put in, our streets are in a kind of completely hickledy-pickledy fashion."
We called the University of Utah, LDS Hospital, Primary Children's Medical Center, McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden, and the head nurse of the Jordan School District to see if any of them have seen an increase in people getting injured while texting and walking. All of them said no.
Gibson says, "We just know how to text better."
The difference may be that Brits walk a lot. Here in Utah, we drive a lot and that's where texting and running into something isn't funny any more.
Cameron Roden, with the Utah Highway Patrol, says, "We do see a lot more distracted drivers. Even if you put your phone in front of your face, you're still not going to be looking at the roadway."
There have been accidents in Utah, some fatal, because of drivers texting.
College student Michelle Lee said, "Texting while you're driving, it's like dangerous. You should really be aware."
After all, you can't put foam pads on the sides of interstates.
