Death By Pokemon Go: Experts Investigate Traffic Accidents Caused By Pokémon GO

Pokémon GO players aim to catch them all. But, while you are out catching the pocket monsters experts suggest that you should watch your surroundings for this game is prone to accidents. As reports show that drivers and pedestrians have been distracted and as a result, vehicular accidents are rampant.

Pokémon GO was launched last July and within 13 hours, it has been the top grossing app in the United States. With over 4 to 5 million downloads a day it has moved the gaming world to a new level. One of the perks of this game is that it allows players to let go of the couch and walk around while catching the pocket monsters. Some say that the game can motivate players to exercise.

Given its glory of success, the safety concerns have been coming in, such as reports of robbery, people falling off the cliff and traffic accidents have been growing. Since players of Pokémon go needs to focus on their screens they are credible for distraction. That's why experts suggest focusing on the roads while playing, according to Medical News Today.

A team of researchers came out a warning that Pokémon Go game is a distraction to both pedestrian and drivers; their study is published in a journal titled JAMA Internal Medicine. They explain that 16 to 24 years old cause of death is now from vehicular accidents cause by playing the game.

In line, experts gathered anonymized data from twitter (Relating the posts that contain terms such as "Pokémon" and "driving," "drives," "drive," or "car) and analyse a random sampling of tweets to investigate if the drivers, pedestrians, and passengers are playing Pokémon Go while on the road. It shows that 33 percent of the tweets show that they are indeed distracted by the game, as per the report of International Business Times.

Thus, experts suggest that their findings can support the public, game developers and legislators to have a limit with the Pokémon GO game. Thus, the researcher's advice for the makers is to have a limitation in certain regions like parking lots and roadways.