According to a post on Endaget earlier today, New York State Senator Carl Kruger is planning to introduce legislation that would ban the use of cell phones and mp3 players when crossing streets in major New York cities, including NYC. Kruger's motivation, according to the post, is "two recent pedestrian deaths in Kruger's district where at least one is said to be the result of a person 'listening to his iPod.'" Engadget didn't include a link to any source so it's impossible to tell if this news is nothing more than rumor, but let's assume for a moment that it is.

Ignoring the possible first amendment violations this bill represents, how it basically makes mp3 players useless and the fact that it's basically unenforceable (the police in NYC don't have enough to do already?), we're forgetting how much business gets transacted by cell phone. Perfectly legal, legitimate business; the kind that doesn't involve drugs or unregistered firearms. If you make it so that a business person can't talk to other business people on his or her phone while walking down the street, it's going to slow down the speed of business - and that means lost revenue. Does Carl Kruger want to be personally responsible for potentially millions in lost revenue? It's unfortunate that an-iPod totting pedestrian died while crossing the street, but that doesn't mean that millions of other New Yorkers who look both ways before cross should have to suffer.