Texting While Stupid
A good thing: The Massachusetts legislature is about to approve a ban on texting while driving. Also a ban on talking on the phone while driving for the under-18 set. Said one State Senator to the Boston Globe, “I commute 72 miles each way to the State House, and people are reading textbooks, putting eyeliner on, slapping their kids in the backseat, eating Big Macs, and a myriad of other things, while driving cars, usually with their knees.”With their knees? While doing their homework and putting on eyeliner? And ouch, while turning to slap away at their poor kids in the back seat?High time, is all I can say, And Massachusetts is hardly out in front on this: if the bill passes, my state will be the 29th in the nation to ban texting for all drivers; the 29th to ban all phone use for under-18s. Oh and it also covers doing these things while idling at traffic lights and Stop signs. Plus the lawmakers are smart: their ban also explicitly includes e-mailing, web searching and all other non-calling activities you can accomplish on any kind of electronic device.It’s a good law because the world full of idiots. I'm an idiot myself. I think from now on I’ll keep my Blackberry in the ‘way back’ where I can’t possibly get to it and make or take a call or look at a text. After all, that’s where I keep all the snack food I’m transporting home from the store. WeightWatchers girl that I am, I don’t trust myself to sit beside it - and if Doritos are bad for your health how much worse is that semi bearing down on you as you wander across the median into oncoming traffic?I did that only once in my life and no phones where involved. I was just gesturing toward the view and the country road was narrow and, well, I meandered all unwitting across that center line – and came SO close to hitting the kid behind the wheel of the oncoming car that our mirrors whacked each other, hard. I have never forgotten that moment.So yeah: Phone in the “way- back” for me from now on. And not because I fear the ticket.
