Study shows danger of wearing headphones that block sound of traffic
“I saw it in my peripheral vision but couldn’t hear it coming,” he said.
This issue has been researched over the last seven years by Associate Professor Richard Lichenstein of the University of Maryland. His team of researchers found that the number of injuries to pedestrians wearing headphones has more than tripled since 2004.
Lichenstein and his team looked at 116 cases of vehicle versus pedestrian accidents in which the pedestrian was wearing headphones.
Seventy percent of those hit were killed, and two-thirds of them were men under the age of 30, according to the study.
The study was published in the January 2012 issue of the scholarly journal “Injury Prevention.”
Murphy, who fits in the demographic of young men that the team researched, said he is now more aware of the unheard danger of vehicles while he wears headphones.
The team of scientists looked at possible explanations for the startling statistics. Two similar theories were identified – sensory deprivation and “inattentional blindness.”
Inattentional blindness is “when multiple stimuli divide the brain’s” attention according to a press release on the study’s findings. Lichenstein’s team identified sensory deprivation from headphone use as a situation in which the “ability to hear a train or car warning signal is masked by sounds produced by the portable electronic device and headphones.”
However, warning horns were not used in two-thirds of the deadly accidents, according to the study.
Murphy didn’t hear a thing from the car when it careened into the parking lot only feet away from where he was walking -- warning horn or otherwise. He said he wears his headphones about 80 percent of the time while walking around, “just to set the mood or pass the time.”
Trains were involved in more than half of the deaths reviewed in the University of Maryland study, which was started after Lichenstein reviewed the tragic death of a local Maryland teen on railroad tracks.
Operation Lifesaver is a train safety awareness organization, and publishes tips to help make people aware of train-related dangers.
One of their tips is “Stay alert around railroad tracks. No texting, headphones, or distractions that would prevent you from hearing an approaching train.”
Western sophomore Skyler Doak regularly wears headphones while walking to and from class.
Even though he keeps the tunes rolling while getting from class to class, Doak said he’s still aware of his surroundings.
“I’ve never had a close call,” he said. “I can still hear what’s going on around me.”
“This as an opportunity to – at a minimum – alert parents of teens and young adults of the potential risk of wearing headphones when moving vehicles are present,” Lichenstein said in a press release.
70 percent of people hit while wearing headphones were killed
Source: “Injury Prevention” study
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