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2007 April 09
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Please go to the new Coffee Coaster site implemented more gracefully in Wordpress. This page: http://brianrwright.com/CoffeeCoasterBlog/?p=5414 |
This afternoon I'm out in my "enthusiast" vehicle as a third "cellphone shuffle" occurs at a stop sign—a movement requiring the utmost dexterity:
The driver drapes his left hand lightly over the steering wheel, leans his head slightly to the right to help his other hand position the mobile phone to which he is intently listening and into which he is animatedly speaking... simultaneously.
At exactly the right instant, a full carlength through the stop sign and a foot from cross traffic, the driver casts his eyes to the left for two microseconds to check for anything coming down the road fast enough or close enough to result in body work that exceeds his deductible.
If he sees a big ol' truck, the driver immediately puts his foot through the anti-locking brakes and stops one inch from traffic. However, if you're a motorcyclist or a pizza delivery boy in a homemade Yugo, you better say your prayers: Cellphone Sam (or Sally) is coming thru.
I've purposely used male pronouns in describing the shufflemeisters, but I'd have to give teenage girls—the teens are even into manual "texting" over the phone—and younger women top billing. "You can take her Nokia when you pry it out of her cold dead fingers."
And coming thru wouldn't necessarily mean a life-threatening injury if these dingdongs with phones in their ears would accelerate vigorously out of your way. But, no, they wander into traffic just as they drifted through the stop sign, stuck in high gear without any hands remaining to shift down.
Where's a MAID (Mother Against Inattentive Driving) when you you need one? A driving-enthusiast friend of mine wonders if it might be time to do something:"Brian," he says, "the manufacturers are contributing to the problem with navigation displays, audio-visual systems, even DVD players you can view from the driver's side! We're telling people driving is like playing video games in your rec room. I hate prohibitions as much as anyone, but the roads need some common sense rules."
Reminds me of Velda back in 2002 when New York implemented a handheld-cellphone-use ban. She heartily agreed, saying "Here, here! I'm tired of being cut off by some bimbo-princess in an SUV bubble-gumming with her girlfriend!" I cautioned, "But, baby, what's next, a law to keep someone from listening to NPR on the radio?"
Special event
Howard Wooldridge of LEAP speaks at Michigan State University
4/11/07
105 S Kedzie Hall 5-7 pm
Info (517) 388-1048
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