Montclair High School students cross Monte Vista Avenue Tuesday February 13, 2018 in Montclair, Calif. (Staff photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Montclair High School students cross Monte Vista Avenue Tuesday February 13, 2018 in Montclair, Calif. (Staff photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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Montclair has made it illegal to cross the street while glued to your phone.

The City Council in December passed an ordinance that reads in part: “No pedestrian shall cross a street or highway while engaged in a phone call, viewing a mobile electronic device or with both ears covered or obstructed by personal audio equipment.”

No earphones, no phone calls and no texting while in a crosswalk? Yes, yes and yes.

The law took effect Jan. 3 but won’t be enforced until Aug. 1 to give police and City Hall time to educate the public. At that point, breaking the law would be an infraction that might merit a $100 ticket.

“We want to educate the public more than we want to do actual enforcement,” Chief Robert Avels assured me.

If you’ve ever stopped at a red light and sighed at the sight of pedestrians crossing in front of you with their head down gazing at their phone, or wearing headphones that block all street sounds, this may represent the most popular thing the Montclair City Council has ever done.

This is why I attended a Montclair council meeting last month, figuring it was a chance to ask officials about the law. But I got distracted myself by the spectacle of council members deciding a 30 percent raise for themselves wasn’t enough.

City Manager Ed Starr hatched the idea for the law while reading about a “cell phone lane” in Chongqing, China. It’s unclear if the lane was a bureaucratic joke — it’s only 100 feet long — but Starr began to think more seriously about pedestrian safety.

“I’d heard that in Honolulu, they had adopted an ordinance regarding the use of electronic devices by pedestrians,” Starr said.

That “distracted pedestrian” law, passed last July, bars people from looking at their device while in a crosswalk. Too many people, including seniors, are hit in crosswalks by vehicles, Honolulu’s mayor said during the bill-signing ceremony at one of the city’s busiest intersections.

Honolulu was evidently the first American city to address pedestrian use of phones. “We may be the second city in the entire country,” Starr said of Montclair. “There might be one or two on the East Coast. Probably we are in the first five cities in the country to do it.”

Montclair, the spear tip of social change? That’s not my image of the 39,000-population suburb, which is known mostly for its shopping mall, but maybe I’m behind the times.

By the way, in Honolulu, you can still yak on the phone in a crosswalk. Montclair bans any use of a phone in a crosswalk other than a 911 call. (Mercifully, Montclair stops short of caning offenders.)

At the Dec. 4 council meeting, resident Benjamin Lopez spoke in opposition. He said the recent victim of an accident in a crosswalk suffered the consequences of their actions, that police aren’t adequately enforcing skateboard and bicycle laws and that visitors may be less likely to come to Montclair if they are ticketed.

Student Nicola Martinez of Our Lady of Lourdes School spoke in support. She told council members that she sees students walking home who are distracted by their phone screens and putting themselves in danger. Adults should also be subject to the law, she said, to set a good example.

The law applies to adults and children alike, but younger people are the ones most likely to be walking with cell phones. At least until President Trump visits.

I went out Tuesday afternoon to the corner of Monte Vista Avenue and Benito Street, just east of Montclair High School, to observe the scene as school let out. That’s one of about 50 crossings with signals within city limits.

Nobody was holding a phone and nobody wore headphones, but some had one earbud in — which the law allows — and some had two. It wasn’t easy to tell the difference unless you saw the students head-on.

Many students support the law. “I think it’s a good thing,” said Kristerpher Simon, 17, who had one earbud in and one out. Christian Grijalva, 15, had only one earbud in as well, which he told me was “for safety.”

Classes and morning announcements have explained the new law. Everyone I spoke with knew about it.

“It could reduce car accidents and kids getting hit,” Alyssa Risch, 18, said. She checked her phone only after getting to the sidewalk. “I don’t see why it’s a big deal,” she continued. “People don’t pay attention when they drive. Kids don’t pay attention when they walk. I heard somebody got a ticket and is really pissed about it.”

Gaby Arenda crossed the street with both earbuds in. I asked her about the law. “Clearly, I’m not following it, right?” she said with a smile.

“I feel like people should be more aware or they’ll be hit by a car,” the 17-year-old said. Is she putting herself in danger by not removing her earbuds? “Definitely not. You just have to look up the street and see if a car’s coming,” she said.

I trailed down the sidewalk after Miguel Angel, 18, who had both earbuds in, and after saying “excuse me” twice had to tap him on the arm to get his attention. He pulled his earbuds out for an interview about the law.

“In my opinion, just don’t get caught, first of all,” Angel said.

This Angel has a little Devil in him.

But like Arenda, he said he looks both ways and keeps his music turned low. “If people get hit, it’s because they weren’t paying attention,” he said. “It has nothing to do with earbuds.”

City Hall’s report on the ordinance cited statistics that pedestrian fatalities are rising nationally and that the age of electronic device users is getting younger. Children are at higher risk when multi-tasking because their brains are still developing.

“You have children in elementary school with iPhones. It’s more prevalent than the Walkman was in its day,” Chief Avels said. “They’re not understanding the serious consequences of not paying attention. There’s danger in crossing the roadways.” Avels said of the city law: “We’re on the cusp of something that will become common down the road.”

A student was injured seriously in a crosswalk a few years ago, Starr said Thursday, and just the previous week, a junior high student was sideswiped by a car as she looked at her cell phone. The car was moving slowly enough that she was unhurt.

The council approved the law unanimously, but Councilman Bill Ruh was only won over when police told him they were in support. “I just wonder, how do you enforce something like this? Sometimes people need to use common sense,” Ruh told me.

Honolulu’s mayor made a similar point but from a different angle. “Sometimes I wish there were laws we did not have to pass, that perhaps common sense would prevail,” Kirk Caldwell said at the signing ceremony. “But sometimes we lack common sense.”

Starr said the education campaign will extend to signs and pavement markings but already includes stickers on traffic poles by the pedestrian push-button.

“Some of those have been removed, particularly near the skate park,” Starr said with a chuckle. “We presume some young people are registering their complaints.”

David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, more to complain about. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook, follow @davidallen909 on Twitter and buy “Getting Started” and “Pomona A to Z.”