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 29^th 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.

You Do WHAT While Driving?

The Today Show was all set to focus on Oprah’s No Phone Zone Day this morning with a live phone interview with the great lady herself who assured wise Meredith and super-poised Ann and the perennially dressed-for-cocktails Hoda that of course she wasn’t calling while driving. She was going on and on in her folksy tell-it-like-it-is way when suddenly – bip! – the line went dead and she disappeared completely – which seemed pretty funny to me because it suggested that maybe even though she SAID she was Calling While Standing Still maybe even she was just then rounding a corner to pick up the dry cleaning.

The worst thing of course is Texting While Driving. This is what’s killing people, mostly teenagers. And if you haven’t yet seen the horrific dramatization of a texting death and you think  you have the stomach for it you can watch it here. (Be careful though; it’s pretty sickening.)

But what I’m wondering is will Oprah’s efforts have an effect? We can only hope, because driving while texting really is insane and much, much harder to pull off than, say, driving while inserting a tampon, which believe you me many a female has done when she’s had to and her clothing allows it.

The Today Show also spotlighted a parent showing her dead daughter’s student ID.  “How can this tiny thing remain when SHE is gone?” she basically asked the camera. But ah, that’s an easy one: Plastic will outlast us all; but a human? A human is as fragile as a ripe tomato – and that’s something we’d all do well to remember every single time we get behind the wheel.