The road to hell is paved with…cell phones
DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour
By Al Vinikour
I know
what you’re thinking…Al, have you finally made peace with cell phone users who still drive while they’re holding conversations? Sorry, you’re dead wrong.
what you’re thinking…Al, have you finally made peace with cell phone users who still drive while they’re holding conversations? Sorry, you’re dead wrong. If anything, my disdain for people who drive erratically because they’re engrossed in a phone conversation is growing. Instead of minding their
driving it’s getting to the point that it’s less dangerous to walk through downtown Tehran wearing a U.S. Army uniform than it is to drive down I-75 amid cell phone talkers.
Case in point; the other day I was driving down one of Detroit’s lovely freeways and wound up fascinated by watching the car in front of me drift from lane-to-lane, like a glider in a windstorm; or those clouds containing thousands of starlings. It was early-afternoon and my first thought was that this guy got an early start on Happy Hour, which in his case could best be described as Happy Day. After a mile or so I was able to interpret his flight plan so the next time he veered to the right I passed him on the far left. Even with all the windows closed on my car I expected to catch a whiff of Old Muskie #9. But no, this guy was talking on his cell phone while making erratic hand gestures. (I could be un-PC and say he was probably Italian but I don’t think like that.)
What this guy was doing was putting his phone call first and his driving was an afterthought. Apparently when out of the corner of his eye he would see a barricade he’d make an attempt to right his ship so it would ease back into a highway lane. But in the meantime, he didn’t miss a word of his phone call.
After I passed him I looked in my rearview mirror and saw what looked like a mile-long traffic jam, comprised of drivers who were too skittish to step on the gas and leap ahead of this one-man motion sickness machine. If this happens in broad daylight just after lunch imagine how dangerous it would be when this same scenario repeats itself in the middle of the night when peoples’ reaction times are diminished.
Regular readers of mine know my disdain for those who do not use turn signals…and every manufacturer in the world gives you this device for free as a car-warming gift. But I’m quickly growing an equal hatred for people who talk on their cell phone while driving at the same time. In all honestly I also occasionally speak on my cell phone when I’m driving. But when I have to do this – and I sincerely try not to – I make sure I’m in the slow lane. Ideally I’ll be behind a convoy of 18-wheelers where I’m lost to the other two lanes. As long as I stay within mine, not causing anybody any harm. I’m not creating a hazard. I don’t condone it even when it’s me doing it. I know, a lot of you will call me a hypocrite – I should never drive and use a hand held phone. I know and I’ll try to better behave.
What I can’t believe the police can’t pick these errant drivers up five miles away on a clear day. Then why aren’t they pulled over for obstructing traffic and reckless driving? If the conversation is between a husband and wife about their son who just had 253 bricks dropped on his head from a building being razed and he’s in critical condition at the hospital I would be the first one to advocate giving the guy a pass (providing he hasn’t run over a snail darter or a West Texas Geranium Beetle during his haste). But for every other reason there is no excuse. Either pull off the road or do what I should do – get a Bluetooth hands free system and even then do your talking in the slow lane.
Do I ever think this situation will ever correct itself? Of course not! Every day thousands of new cell phones hit the market – especially in the hands of young kids, who have the quickest reflexes in existence, and the driving skills of a 92-year-old dementia sufferer. Consequently, the telecommunications lobby will only get stronger, the desire on the congressional recipients of the lobby’s largesse to curtail anything that could be fiscally harmful to their benefactors would always take priority and law enforcement, hit with consistent funding cuts is going to have to pick and choose what crimes they can put their diminishing resources towards and when it comes to stopping a weaving vehicle on an expressway and taking down a gang of punks doing the hokey pokey around some poor old lady at an ATM machine then guess who will get the “get out of jail free” card.
And what will be the ultimate results of this? Vigilantism, that’s what. I know for myself that if some a-hole is paying more attention to his cell phone than he is his driving and winds up crashing into, or worse, killing someone in my family, the coroner will have to match the tread on the corpse’s face to those of a chart from The Tire Rack to identify the cause of death.
I swear I’m going to do the right thing — soon!
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