We all
realize that there are many dangers in our everyday world. Some are obvious
dangers that we go out of our way to avoid. We lock out doors at night, try to
drive carefully, (I loved it when my mother would tell to drive carefully. I
usually replied something like, “No mom, I’m going to drive blindfolded from
the back seat.” She thought I was hilarious – NOT.) if we handle weapons we do
so gingerly, make sure the ladder is stable before climbing it, look both ways
before crossing a street, we go indoors if there is lightening, tornado
warnings drive us to the basement and the list goes on.
We all have
had friends who were risk takers and would try almost anything. Most of them
didn’t live past their twenties and we miss them. But they had, what they would
call, a good time. These were the friends who jumped off of cliffs into shallow
water, raced cars down country roads, rode motorcycles without helmets, drank
way too much beer and insisted on driving home, went rappelling without first
learning how, riding the wake of towboats on the Ohio River in canoes without life
vests or knowing how to swim or got into fights with much larger opponents. It
is a wonder some of us lived through it. I was shocked when I turned 30.
Even with
all the precautions we put in place: accidents happen; unforeseen things happen;
people make mistakes; storms blow up. And some people text while driving. I went
to lunch with a couple of friends last Friday. We were tooling along Getwell
Street in Memphis. Did you know it used to be called Shotwell? That was before
a veteran’s hospital was built there and they changed the name to Getwell. Both
of the guys I was riding with are longtime residents of Memphis so I was
getting the tour. The car may have been on Getwell but they were traveling down
memory lane. They were telling me what used to be located where a newer store
now stood. A really great restaurant used to be there and “Joe Doaks” used to
live in that house and there was a drug store on that corner that had great
sundaes. None of what they were saying made any sense to me but they were
having a great time. I was just useful as a “tourist” to point out their
memories to. We were just riding along, having a good time and minding our own
business. When – BLAM!!
The driver
of the car I was in had slowed for the traffic in front of us. The woman behind us did not. My
guess is she hit us doing around 45 MPH. She never took her foot off of the accelerator
and put on the brake. She had no clue that the cars in front of her were almost
stopped. She couldn’t have. She was much too busy texting to be bothered with
driving. She was another of those sadly delusional people who think they can “multitask.”
“No problem, I can drive and text at the same time.” No you can’t. You can
drive and then you can text and then you can drive and then you can text. But
you CANNOT drive and text at the same time. One at a time. Perhaps you can switch
back and forth between the two tasks rather rapidly but you can’t do both at
the same time. And every time you text, you take your eyes off of the road. This
is fine, if nothing on the road changes while you are reading or writing a
text. Unfortunately things on the road change all the time. Fortunately no one
was killed or severely injured. Her car was totaled. I do hope that text was
important enough to be worth the pain and problems it caused.
Yes, I know
you are Superman or Wonder Woman and YOU can text and drive. You, of course,
are the exception. Even though you are such an exceptional person, do me a
favor and please, while you are in the car, PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY. It would
really bother me if you were texting and were killed in a traffic accident. It
would bother me even more if you killed me in a traffic accident.
Copyright ©
2014, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment