Anything you can do with a phone while driving will eventually cause an accident if enough people are doing it, and so it goes with Pokemon Go. With the game being more popular than Tinder, Twitter, and even Facebook, it was inevitable a car accident would happen, and these two crashes aren’t a hoax this time.
On Tuesday night, a 28-year-old Pokemon Go player crashed into a tree in Auburn, New York, admitting to police he was playing the game behind the wheel. Another crash occured on Tuesday when a Pokemon Go player at Texas A&M University illegally parked their car and got out to catch a Pokemon, and another vehicle struck the unoccupied, illegally-parked car:
7/11-Traffic accident: Illegally parked car struck from behind (*Airbags deployed in 2nd car). 1st driver had exited to catch a Pokémon.
— Texas A&M Police (@TAMUPolice) July 13, 2016
You can see pictures of the first accident’s scary aftermath here and here. The drivers in both accidents are thankfully okay, although now they’re going to have to explain why their car is gone because they saw a Jigglypuff.
Sarah Kendzior makes a good point about these strange times:
So Pokemon Go is a game designed to get you to explore the world without seeing what's really in it, but only a simulated fantasy?
How 2016
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 11, 2016
But may we also offer a counterpoint:
Everyone making fun of Pokemon Go players as if the real world is any good.
— John Moe (@johnmoe) July 10, 2016
(Via Jalopnik, The Post Standard, BuzzFeed, TAMUPolice, and AuburnNY)