…the death penalty for anyone who drives AND talks on a cell phone. Today, in a 10-minute period, I had to call attention to these fucking morons THREE times to move because the light had changed and traffic ahead of them had moved on.
Originally I wanted just to stop these idiots, take their phones, and smash on the ground, but phones are so cheap now, they’re easily replaced. Then I moved on to shoving the phone up their asses, but the phones are getting so small, I doubt they would have noticed.
Now, they should be dragged out of their cars, thrown down to the pavement, and shot in the back of the head and dumped in the nearest sewer.
Ho, Ho, Ho, mother fuckers…
As of Nov 1 this year, using a hand held phone was made illegal in NY. You can still use a cell phone hands free, though, which is stupid. It’s not the phone in hand that causes the problem, it’s the conversation itself that seems to distract. (IMHO)
And it’s not just in moving cars. A couple of months ago I’m in a bookstore. I’m walking up the sci-fi aisle and there’s a man standing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE (but that’s another rant) and I am forced to wedge myself around him to get by. He’s on his cellphone and this is the part of the conversation I hear:
“No. In the closet. Not that closet, the other one. On the third shelf. THE THIRD SHELF!! No, no, no, the other shelf.”
A few minutes later. I’m in a different section and he walks by, still talking:
“Look I told you the other shelf. I know where I put it. Don’t you talk that way to me.”
He moved on and I left.
Now, imagine this numb-nuts behind the wheel yelling into the phone and motioning with hands!
Or yelling and motioning at his wife in the car with him. It isn’t phones per se–you get the same result with drivers who drive and eat, or drive and fiddle with the radio, or drive and converse with their passengers. Driving while not really paying attention is dangerous, regardless of the specific distraction…and I worry a lot more about those people killing somebody (like me) than I do whether they move fast enough when the light changes.
Like the time I saw a woman driving a Ford Excursion out of a parking lot. She was yakking away on a cell phone using her left hand while trying to make a left turn. She used her right hand to paw at the steering wheel to make the turn and nearly ran into a building.
There are many things that can distract drivers from the task at hand, we just don’t need something as interactively intensive as talking on a phone. I’m willing to bet that a good 95% of cell phone conversations are complete and utter bullshit that could wait until the driver gets home or to their destination.
I’ll admit to fiddling with the stereo while driving, but I do my best to set it the way I want while at a complete standstill or better yet, BEFORE I get going on the road.
I’ve heard people argue that they talk and drive just fine, and I believe them if they say so, but what I used to catch myself doing was slowing way down- not keeping the correct speed while I was talking. I would also sometimes get to a stopsign, and have to say “Hang on” while I looked to see what was coming. My brain was just not really able to do these two particular things at the same time, although I have no problem listening to audiobooks, talking to companions, or eating in the car.
I don’t know what it is, but I would be happy to see more people hang it up in the car. It just seems to put a lot of people into the world of oblivion.
