e-commentary

Her left hand skillfully dangled a glowing butt just outside the window at such an angle that the slipstream did not extinguish it.  Her right hand clutched a cup of java, an eyeliner brush and the cell phone.  Her eyes appeared glued to the rear view mirror and to the task of gluing plaster to her eye lashes.  All the while negotiating a civilian urban assault vehicle at just under 35 miles an hour while merging into or possibly colliding with traffic.  Unless her knees had fingers, who was at the wheel of the four wheeled beast?  She managed to muster an outwardly friendly smile and another hand to wave thanks to the drivers diving into the ditch and median.  Quite a performance.

Bastante; Enough.

Self interest is not acting as a governor of bad behavior.  The Feds should step in and ban all cell phone usage and texting by the driver of any vehicle on any road at any time.  If a person is caught using a cell phone, the cell phone should be confiscated immediately and be subject to forfeiture or a payment of a $500 fine to obtain its release.  Drivers will continue to eat, sleep, crochet, change diapers, hit the kids, work on crossword puzzles, perform open heart surgery, etc. while driving.  However, cell phone usage is so widespread and dangerous and so easy to detect and deter that we as a society need to ban the use of cell phones in vehicles by the driver immediately.

Bumper stickers of the week:

Hang up and drive

This morning in the interstate I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new Cadillac with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner.  I looked away for a couple seconds.  When I looked back she was halfway over in my lane still working on that makeup.  As a man, I do not scare easily, but she scared me so much that I dropped my electric shaver which knocked the doughnut out of my hand.  In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, my cell phone got knocked away from my ear, which feel into the coffee between my legs, ruined the damn phone, soaked my trousers and disconnected an important call.  Damn women drivers.

This entry was posted on August 10, 2009 at 8:40 am and is filed under Cell Phones, Less Government Regulation Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.