Third of road crossers distracted by mobiles

Almost one in every three pedestrians crossing the road are using their mobile phone, a US study suggests.

Of more than 1,000 people crossing 20 different roads in Seattle, 10% were listening to music, 7% were texting and 6% were having conversations, on phones the journal Injury Prevention reports.

The texters were four times more likely to ignore red lights or fail to look both ways before crossing.

And they took almost two seconds longer to cross a three to four lane junction.

Listening to music speeded up the time taken to cross the road, but those that were doing it were less likely to look both ways before crossing.