According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2007- 2016 pedestrian fatalities increased 27%. Meanwhile all other traffic deaths decreased by 14%.
This is an issue the campus police are seeing at UT.
"We are seeing a lot of students walking and texting. Often times, students are crossing the street. They aren't looking up, they are just walking into the street. " Lola Alapo, the PIO with the University of Tennessee Police Department, said.
Distracted walking is a problem experts said has contributed to the nearly 6,000 pedestrian deaths in the U.S. last year.
The new Governor's Highway Safety Association report released Wednesday estimates that 5,984 pedestrians were killed in the U.S. in 2017.
Our crew was on campus for an hour, at one intersection and we saw about 100 people walking while looking down at their phone.
While this is obviously a wide spread issue that police are working to fix, it's still complete legal to look at your phone while walking down the sidewalk.
Some areas in the U.S. have put laws in place to avoid this. Honolulu and Montclair, California both have laws in place banning the use of a cellphone and headphones while walking across the street.