What got me off on this rant was almost being run down early Saturday afternoon. A young girl driver, with a car full of young girls, was busy talking on her cell phone while waiting to turn left across two lanes of traffic into a fast food restaurant. Luckily I spotted this potential murderess almost a block away. Needless to say, she pulled right (left) in front of me. The only reason I didn’t get creamed was that I anticipated her action and was prepared to go around behind her. I pulled into the McDonalds, next to her car in the drive thru, and proceeded to make her cry (I wish I could have spanked her). A cop who was in the lot walked over and asked me what I thought I was doing. I explained what had happened and he jumped me for making the poor little thing cry and then said “It’s not like she was driving drunk or anything.†I was then somewhat less than cordial to the cop and left.
If I get killed what difference does it make if the driver was drunk, senile, distracted or a mental defective? We treat drunk drivers like the scum of the Earth but if a 17 year old girl is incapable of driving without a cell phone pressed against her ear that’s OK? Is a person yakking on the phone and ignoring their driving acting more responsibly than a person who stops at the bar for a few shots on the way home? Diminished capacity is diminished capacity!
Thinking about this over the weekend has given me a few ideas. Outlaw cell phones while driving, at least require hands free phones (OK, not original). Require any driver to be at least 21 before allowing ANY use of a cell phone, hands free or not. If a driver is at fault in an accident and was talking on the phone, eating, screwing with the radio etc. give them the same sentence a drunk driver would get. With cell company records proving the phone use would be easy.
