Smartphones allow for full and uninterrupted connectivity but such privilege can also harm or kill unsuspecting users who may get too engrossed in talking and texting using the device.

According to 'spot tests' conducted recently by the Pedestrian Council of Australia, up to 10 percent of pedestrians in the country's major cities developed the habit of using their mobile phones while crossing the busy streets.

That kind of scenario, Council chair Harold Scruby, invites danger to these people in the way that talking on the phone while driving could somehow distract the one on the steering wheel and lead to accidents or even road kills.

Scruby told The Daily Telegraph that basing on their observations, which include documenting many people busy at their phones while negotiating and crossing the streets of Sydney, the problem is fast-becoming an alarming concern for authorities.

Yet he admitted that authorities were clueless on the extent of the real situation because incident reports about the matter are non-existent.

"The worst part about this is that the statistics are not just under-reported, they are not reported at all, so we don't know how many accidents or deaths have occurred because someone was distracted by their phone or iPod," the Telegraph quoted Scruby as saying.

The Council said that people tend to shut down their alertness when using mobile phones out in the streets as Scruby noted that they practically "behave like sheep."

"The first one generally looks and the rest follow without looking," Scruby described the general behaviour that mobile phone users displayed while using their phones on the street.

That in the long-run, as already proven by unreported incidents, would lead to accidents that will either hurt or kill careless pedestrians, Scruby said.

Throwing cautions to the wind is almost the immediate after-effects of talking or sending messages to someone while on the street as "people focus on what they're doing on the phone and not on crossing the road," according to paramedic David Morris.

"These smartphones are a very beneficial tool but at the same time a very dangerous tool," Morris reminded mobile phone users in the Telegraph report.