DRIVER'S SIDE DIARIBE
By Al Vinikour    

Fewer environments are more sterile, depressing and quiet than the waiting room at a doctor’s office. No matter how nicely its furnished you’re still going to find a passel of long-expired magazines (if ever you want to see a copy of Colliers, Saturday Evening Post and Look Magazine check out the racks, they’re probably there); a sliding glass panel where you can see at least three to four people working full-time on billing and people speaking in hushed tones, like they’re afraid to wake the dead (pardon the pun).

Nothing seems to move except maybe a few fish in the obligatory aquarium that have nothing to do and all day to do it in. You get the picture, dear reader. However, I have discovered another venue that easily gives a doctor’s waiting room a run for its misery; it’s called a stoplight.

Just what makes a stoplight competitive? It’s the nut behind the wheel. In this case it’s these inconsiderate, law-breaking bastards who take the opportunity of stopping for a red light to jump onto their cell phones and send and receive text messages. Talk about gall!

They’ll continue pecking away like some barnyard chickens until somebody behind them honks their horn, urging them to get the hell out of the way because the light turned green a long time ago. No apology, no remorse, no nothing but hubris.

First of all most states have now made it illegal to text while operating a motor vehicle. But of course this mandate is for others, certainly not someone as important as the proctologist’s dream currently driving. Secondly, if one has the mindset of this particular driver, the subliminal thought is, “What’s the rush?”  As I’ve often said about slowly-responsive drivers, whether they’re texting or just sitting there fighting a war on incontinence, I don’t know how long I have left in my life but I don’t want to waste any of it sitting behind someone like I’m describing.

One of these days, when I’m not in such a hurry to beat the lines at the local Dairy Queen, I’m going to find an obvious scofflaw sending a text, get behind them, and see just how long they’ll be at it before they either notice the light has turned green (maybe four cycles ago) or they look up to see a long-haired, heavily-bearded individual with a black leather Harley-Davidson vest whose salivating like Cujo wanting to get at the hapless and clueless driver.

Just an aside I would think that even after having the living Hell beaten out of him a true texting-merchant would send out another “tweet” to his list saying he now has a reworked nose, has 50% fewer teeth to brush and one less testicle to worry about.

When my little boy (who’s now almost 42) was younger I would tell him we had to go. His usual reply was, “I’m in the middle of a game.” There’s no difference in a “tweeter” waiting at a green light because they’re, “In the middle of a text message.” I agree with Mr. Harley, this guy should be in the middle of an ass-whooping that will conclude when it looks like he just spent his first night in a maximum-security prison and became some bad man’s new wife.

I’m as disgusted by the lack of clampdowns on text-messaging as I am the relative failure on the part of law enforcement to cite drivers who fail to use their turn signals (long a pet peeve of mine). Besides making the roads safer for the rest of the driving public both would generate great amounts of much-needed revenue for the community.

There’s another element in jeopardy from people texting and not paying attention to their driving; it’s pedestrians. Let’s say that a driver, we’ll call him Jack, is sitting at a major intersection texting his buddy about a punk rock show he’d just left. It’s black as coal outside because it’s well after midnight. After what seems like a long time, even to Jack, he looks up and sees the light is green.

However, unknown to this idiot it’s the third cycle and some poor homeless guy who waited through two lights because of fear of being hit crossing the street finally figures nobody is paying attention so he’s safe to attempt the crossing. Wrong! As Jack realizes the light is green he tosses his cell phone on the seat next to him and gets on the gas just as this poor homeless dude is dead center of the grille of Jack’s car. The next thing this poor hobo knows is that he’s being serenaded by what appears to be a quartet of harps in a brightly-lit auditorium.

As Mr. Mackey, student counselor at South Park Elementary School would say, “Texting while driving is bad.” If you want to text and drive then make them consecutive, sort of like the long  prison sentences you should receive if you cause bodily harm to someone because you’re lost in a cyber world.

When you’re in a 4’ x 6’ cell with two burley longshoremen you’ll still be able to tweet, or bray, or moo or any other sounds they “suggest” you make.