Although the number of people killed on NSW roads so far this year had dropped, pedestrian deaths climbed by 25 per cent to 53 compared with 44 for the same period last year. Harold Scruby, of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, said research into deaths resulting from people not paying attention to traffic while using mobile devices was scant in NSW. "Death by iPod' is a relatively new phenomenon so it may be slow in showing up," he said.

The lesson, Townsend said, couldn't be clearer: Turn that racket down.
"You could easily become street pizza," he said. "While tuning in their iPods, they tune out the world. In the process, they become inattentive to traffic and to road conditions. That's dangerous, to say the least."

I HAD long thought that the only immediate danger to youngsters from their addiction to earphones and iPods was the chance that their brains would rot from exposure to the drivel which passes for music.

However, I have noticed that listening to an iPod apparently requires so much concentration that kids neither see nor hear the outside world.