(Image Credit: ABC News) 
 
 Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking. 
 
 "It's a big distraction. Pedestrians aren't watching where they are going and they are not aware," said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department. 
 
 Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets. 
 
 "When I walk I still look around. I'm not like constantly looking down the whole time," said resident Sue Choe. 
 
 Another woman complained about the tickets were "a lot of money." 
 
 Officers handed out pamphlets during a short grace period in March before they began aggressively going after "dangerous walkers." 
 
 More than 117 tickets have been issued, according to the New Jersey Record. 
 
 Two professors at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a study on walking and texting. They found texters are 60 percent more likely to veer off line than non-texters. 
 
 "We want to raise awareness that a real disruption occurs because of texting," Eric Lamberg, co-author of the study, told Long Island Business News. "Texting disrupts your ability much more than does talking." ||||| Walk the walk. And talk the talk. But don’t do the two simultaneously, unless you want to risk veering off course, according to a study by Stony Brook University researchers. 
 
 Although it’s widely accepted that texting and talking on cell phones while driving can lead to accidents, researchers found texting will throw people off course and interfere with memory– even when walking. 
 
 Although it may be self-evident that texting while walking will lead to distractions, Stony Brook researchers measured the impact. 
 
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 They said they were looking at how the brain handles, or runs into problems, handling the two simultaneous activities. 
 
 “We were surprised to find that talking and texting on a cell phone were so disruptive to one’s gait and memory recall,” said Eric M. Lamberg, co-author of the study and clinical associate professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Stony Brook University’s School of Health Technology and Management. 
 
 The study, by Lamberg and Lisa M. Muratori, a clinical associate professor in Stony Brook’s Department of Physical Therapy, was published in Gait & Posture titled “Cell phones change the way we walk.” 
 
 “We were looking at whether texting had more disruptions than talking on a cell phone,” Lamberg said. 
 
 Researchers asked participants to walk to a point 8 feet away and then asked them to return and repeat the exercise while texting, as well as talking on cell phones. 
 
 The researchers found “gait velocity is reduced when using a cell phone while talking or texting,” that “navigational errors occur when texting while walking” and “texting while walking produces greater interference than talking on a cell phone.” 
 
 “Cell phone use among pedestrians leads to increased cognitive distraction, reduced situation awareness and increases in unsafe behavior,” according to the abstract of the study in Gait and Posture online. “Performing a dual-task, such as talking or texting with a cell phone while walking, may interfere with working memory and result in walking errors.” 
 
 Participants who texted while walking “veered off course, demonstrating a 61 percent increase in lateral deviation and 13 percent increase in distance traveled.” 
 
 Lamberg said this shows the impact such distractions have on walking, an activity that seems automatic. 
 
 “We are using the findings to help physical therapy patients improve true functional walking,” he said, noting some tasks may affect their gait or certain aspects of memory. “In rehabilitation, we should use this as a tool to prepare our patients to be more ready to function in a natural environment.” 
 
 He said patients going through rehabilitation might even be told to text or talk while walking as they seek to regain their stride. 
 
 “We think using dual-task methodology is a way to challenge people during rehabilitation,” Lamberg said, noting, at a minimum, people might be prepared for this dual tasking. “Using cell phone use as part of a gait-training paradigm isn’t common in physical therapy.” 
 
 Reports surfaced last year that Philadelphia banned texting while walking, although city officials quashed those rumors. 
 
 And texting while walking causes a fair number of collisions, although not like those while driving. 
 
 While she was texting while walking last summer in the Berkshire Mall in Reading, Pa., Cathy Cruz Marrero tumbled into the mall fountain. 
 
 The video system at the mall, where she worked, captured that moment. The video was posted on YouTube, generating nearly 4 million views. 
 
 “We want to raise awareness that a real disruption occurs because of texting,” Lamberg said of the bigger picture. “Texting disrupts your ability much more than does talking.” 
 
 Should texting while walking be banned? That’s not the idea behind the research. 
 
 “Absolutely not,” Lamberg said. “I think it’s just to raise an awareness to this issue, that it does disrupt your ability to walk naturally.” 
 
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– Take your fingers off your cell phone, and nobody gets hurt. That could be a warning from one New Jersey town's cops, who are handing out $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who text while they walk—117 so far. "It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going, and they are not aware," said the chief of the Fort Lee police department. Three pedestrians have been killed this year in car accidents, and investigators hope the crackdown will help public safety. Texters, considered "dangerous walkers" by the police department, were warned about the fines with brochures in March, notes ABC News. Two professors at a New York university found that texters are 60% more likely to veer cluelessly off their route than non-texters, increasing the likelihood that they'll stray into danger. Texters, not surprisingly, aren't LOL-ing about the change. “When I walk I still look around. I’m not, like, constantly looking down the whole time,” sniffed one resident.