Ourview
Drivers,
take responsibility
The girl got her license at 16. She got
her cell phone that same year for Christmas.
The two seemed to go hand in hand.
“You need a cell phone in case you have
an emergency on the road,” her family insisted.
Yes, cell phones are an invaluable aid for
the kind of emergencies that most 16-year-olds
encounter.
The cell phone announced a caller to the
tune of Michael Jackson’s “Bad.”
“Hello?”
“Hey, major emergency,” the caller warned.
“Mike’s party got busted. We’re all headed
over to Rocketship Park.”
After five years of constant driving/gabbing,
the girl’s number was finally up. But, despite
predictions otherwise, the cell phone was
not the culprit. While driving through a
parking structure on her way to lunch, the
girl experienced a Homeresque craving for
the mini donuts (Mmm, donuts) sitting in
a baggie just out of reach. As she stretched
across the car, she turned her head for
that vital second that meant the difference
between enjoying the chocolate-coated donuts
and smashing into the side of a brand new
Audi.
The moral of the story is: cell phones do
not cause accidents, inattentive people
cause accidents.
The University of Utah recently released
a study concluding that drivers using cell
phones experience “inattention blindness,”
or the inability to process some visual
information. Whatever that study cost, it
was too much.
We know the majority of people on the road
are lousy and inconsiderate drivers. We
see it everyday on the freeway when the
Lexus tank with the personalized license
plate and the “My other car is my yacht”
license frame decide that it is their right
as a rich person to proceed at 50 mph in
the fast lane.
In any event, cell phones cause just as
much distraction as looking for a CD, setting
the radio dial, having a conversation with
a passenger or reaching for mini chocolate
donuts.
Recently in California, Assemblyman Joe
Simitian proposed a bill that would ban
the use of hand-held cell phones while driving.
Violators would be fined $20 for the first
offense and $50 for any subsequent offenses.
So far, New York is the only state to enact
such a law.
Simitian has said that banning hand-held
cell phones in the car will force motorists
to keep two hands on the steering wheel.
This belief is plain wishful thinking. Many
of us drive with only one hand even when
not talking on the phone.
It is entirely possible to drive responsibly
while talking on the phone. Some people
are just worse drivers than others. Many
of the people on the road, probably the
ones that are causing the cell phone induced
accidents, should not even have licenses
in the first place. Maybe only allowing
people with good driving records to talk
on the phone will help alleviate unnecessary
brake usage associated with clueless cell
phone junkies.
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