do you textwalk?

Joel Garreau today has a non-scientific survey of textwalkers - people who walk along the sidewalks of Washington DC while tapping out a text message on their cell phones (and one person who admits to reading text messages while driving; somebody get her keys). It's a bit of a puff piece, the trend piece with no actual data to back it up, the type that Jack Shafer at Slate likes (with reason) to skewer.

But unlike some of them, this one I've encountered firsthand. Just a few weeks ago in a busy city center, some moron was textstanding at the side of the road. Then without looking up he began to textcrosstheroad. Against traffic.

Several of us there shouted at him and one guy grabbed his arm before he became a red smear on the city streets, another unpleasant mess for municipal workers to clean up.

It makes sense to me that if driving while talking on the cellphone is distracting and dangerous, so would be textwalking. With the bonus, however, of being mostly dangerous only to the textwalker.