Naperville city officials really like Naperville being ranked first. Not only first, but first at doing new things. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as Naperville is first. City officials let one get away. It could have been Naperville, but Honolulu beat them to it by announcing via text (ironic) that Honolulu was the first city in the United States to pass an ordinance against crossing the street while texting or looking at your phone / device.
You can text, or you can cross a street, you just can’t do both at the same time in Honolulu. Doing both at the same time doesn’t make safe sense; passing the ordinance does make sense. Hence wouldn’t it make sense to have the ‘same’ ordinance in Naperville too? What’s the downside? Saving lives is good. Avoiding accidents is good. Adding money to the city coffers without making it a tax is good, right? Without the ordinance, texting while crossing the street is an outstanding method of population control. Without the ordinance, there is a much better chance that texting-drivers will meet texting cross-street walkers in an up-close and personal way.
If city officials are hesitant to pass such an ordinance because they weren’t the first city council to do so, that’s no problem. They can simply re-define ‘first’ by stating that Naperville is the first city in the United States, not named Honolulu, to approve a ‘no crossing while texting’ ordinance. As Naperville continues to grow and become more dense, especially in the downtown area, this issue is only going to become more intense.
In the meantime, if you have to be texting and want to cross the street in Honolulu, text an Uber. You might be doing the same in Naperville some day.