The Police Service is urging parents to speak to their children about playing the popular Pokemon Go on their mobile devices while walking, noting yesterday that some of them end up in traffic while engaging in the activity.
Speaking at the weekly police press briefing yesterday, road safety co-ordinator, PC Brent Batson, asked that parents must be vigilant and ensure their children are safe while playing the game, which encourages users to hunt for Pokemon characters in various places across T&T.
The game was officially launched in T&T early last month and since then Southern Division officers have warned people about venturing into parks late at night playing the game as they could become targets for bandits.
While neither Batson nor Supt Mathura Singh, head of the Highways and Traffic Patrol, could say whether people had been physically injured by recklessly wandering into oncoming traffic while playing the game, Batson said they had noticed a trend with game users.
Yesterday, Batson said: “During some of our enforcement programmes, we noticed this almost addictive approach by pedestrians using this Pokemon Go Application with the phone. Sometimes they will run into parking lot spaces in front of vehicles, so we are hoping that parents could have that serious conversation with their children.”
Singh added that of the 83 people killed as a result of accidents, 23 were pedestrians. While none of these victims were killed playing the game, he warned that some of those who have been enjoying the game could become a statistic if they were not careful.
He added that apart from playing the game, pedestrians should not use headphones and other distracting devices when crossing roads.