Friday, April 18, 2008

Driving is so boring!!

This morning as I awaited my bus, a lady drove by. She had a cigarette in her left hand, and her neck was crooked awkwardly, to hold a cell phone up to her ear. Hopefully the car had an automatic transmission, huh? (Although over the years I've seen people go no-hands-on-the-wheel because they were phoning with one hand and shifting with the other.)

I'm sure her ability and/or reaction time weren't affected in any way. (/sarcasm)

You may recall that a few months back, Washington passed a law banning text-messaging while driving. Apparently 21 other states are considering similar legislation.

To me, that seems absurd. Like passing a law saying you can't drop a bowling ball off a skyscraper, or you can't bring your pet wolverine to City Council Meeting. Do you need to make something so obviously hazardous, not only to the perpetrator but to bystanders, a crime?

I enjoy Jay Leno's "Headlines."

This last Monday, he showed the results of a "man on the street" poll.

The question was, "Should using a cell phone while driving be made illegal?"

Here's Mariel's response:

2 comments:

Marrock said...

How about a separate lane for all those that want to use the phone or text, or put on make-up or whatever else they do to distract themselves while driving...

That way they'll be more likely to just wipe out other equally distracted drivers.

Sort of like running a skimmer through the gene pool.

Bikeboy said...

Great idea, marrock... but it needs a big "Jersey barrier" to keep 'em from straying into the paying-attention-to-driving lanes!
(-;