Here is a safety design for pedestrians, so they can check themselves before they wreck themselves. These are built into sidewalks and placed just ahead of street corners to alert distracted pedestrians that there is an intersection coming up.
There are currently textured surfaces directly on street corners (in yellow above), but I felt a little more warning would be helpful for people glued to their phones.
People hate walking on grates, so I designed this system that features a bunch of smaller grates that will shift slightly when stepped on. The sensation of unsure footing will cause people to look down and take notice.
Each grate is anchored in the middle, and has a subtle pyramid shape underneath, allowing it to rest in 8 different positions.
In this mockup the grates are only tilting 1 degree, which should be enough to alert people who walk on it.
Shoe laces might get caught in the grates, and valuables could be dropped underneath (should be easy to fish out), that said I don’t think this system is any more problematic than existing grates that are currently on city sidewalks.
Dave's Geeky Ideas 