Friday, April 30, 2010

How sTip*2u9sd are We??

Ok,I am a reasonable guy. I work in the world (more or less) of journalism.. but the last 24 hours has taxed even my ability to deal with the ongoing idiocies which we have been gifted by the glitterati. This may in fact be my shortest blog entry (ought it to be a Tweet instead??) but herewith is my point:

Friday 30 April was designated "No Texting" Driving day by Oprah Winfrey.. I don't actually mind that she is encouraging folks to give up the Texting.. on a strictly rational basis, we know it takes all your wits to drive a car safely, but my personal read it the 'distracted' driving issue is this: Far more people are performing in a scary fashion due to burgers, fries and limeades than by texting. You could make a case that you should NOT talk and drive, cause every driver knows that it takes certain effort to participate in a conversation.. hands free or not, your brain is still busy. Not as busy as the freak-out mode when you spill ketchup on your tie, and drip burger drippings on your newly pressed Dockers. That's the kind of distraction which really bores into those driving skill gray cells. I believe when you drive in a stupid fashion (and we all do.. ) that in particular the ones that occur while talking on a cell phone make you worthy of being yelled at. It's just that there is no reason NOT be yelled at when you drive in an asinine fashion, so just pony up and take the bitching. And likewise, you see someone driving in an idiotic fashion, I hereby authorize you to yell at them, usually something like "put down the G-Dam phone, you twit~" Not sure it works but it makes you feel like there is a chance to spread the word about bad driving

Anyway...my point: On tv this morning you had he GMA crew all saying they were going to sign Oprah's pledge (this was after Oprah, on the fone, beseeched all to put the fone down while behind the wheel...) and George and Robin and Sam, and company all said that for today at least, they would honor the pledge. So, whats the issue? Only that NONE OF THESE PEOPLE DRIVE A FRICKEN CAR.... they re all in limos and cabs. Larry King tonight, announced that he too would sign the pledge. Ill bet Larry hasn't put his foot to pedal on anything stronger than a Golf Cart in a dozen years.

So, move ahead, says I, with all these do-gooder plans... hey I can be a do-gooder, too. But count on trying to figure out just how we can keep everything running while driving and not talking. Today, en route from one assignment to the next, I found myself with cell fone in hand. A car blew by, and I thought.. souvenir me a break, dude... but stay out of my space. I'm not texting,,

I'm Sending an eMAIL !!!

we're just sayin'... David

5 comments:

Walter Briggs said...

I've observed police as being a chief violator of this..so how can they enforce it?

Anonymous said...

"I work in the world (more or less) of journalism....Friday 30 April was designated "No Texting" Driving day by Oprah Winfrey.."

The world of more-or-less-journalism is a pretty odd place.

Anonymous said...

while listening to bob edwards on sirius, an oprah ad about cell phones came on during a break...my cell phone rang and i scrambled to answer it (i never keep it handy in the car because no one calls me) diverting my attention in morning rush hour traffic only to find out that the phone ringing was part of her spiel...it was so realistic that later i changed the ring tone...it has happened several time since in her quest to save us all from harm...i wonder how many people she harmed in the making of this ad?

dickiedo

Anonymous said...

Personally I don't text while driving because that's when I pluck my unibrow.
One could design a daily pledge calendar ...surely you can come up with 365 pledges.

Anonymous said...

i bikini wax when im driving

m_harding