Danehy

In 2003, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, alarmed
by data that showed a skyrocketing number of traffic collisions
resulting in injuries and fatalities caused by people talking on cell
phones while driving, wanted to do a comprehensive study on just how
bad the problem was, and how it could be creating a culture of wanton
recklessness on the nation’s roads and highways.

The proposed study was never undertaken, for fear of angering those
many members of Congress who were so deep in the back pockets of the
cell-phone lobbyists that if the lawmaker sneezed, the lobbyist would
get a mini-enema.

The original NHTSA data, which was suppressed by the Bush
administration and then obviously ignored by the Obama people until
being forced into the public arena by a Freedom of Information Act
request, estimates that in 2002, there were 240,000 cell-phone-related
crashes, resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths. And the really horrifying
thing is that 2002 was the good old days, when complaints about people
talking on the phone while driving were met with, “Well, at least
nobody’s stupid enough to text while driving.”

Arizona State Sen. Al Melvin (a Republican from District 26)
introduced a bill (Senate Bill 1443) this past session that would have
made it illegal to text while driving. I have a vivid imagination, but
I swear I can’t think of one reason why anybody with even the
slightest lick of sense would oppose a law banning this incredibly
dangerous practice. And yet, Tucson Democrat Paula Aboud did. I tried
to contact her to ask her why, but she never got back to me. She was
one of 16 (!) state senators who apparently think it is just fine to be
operating a 2,000-pound vehicle with no hands on the steering wheel and
no eyes on the road.

Oh, a couple of senators have made public statements to the effect
of, “There are already laws on the books against distracted driving.”
You know that they paused from Lewinsky-ing the cell-phone lobbyist
just long enough to read that sentence from an index card that they
carry with them at all times.

Melvin says that even Verizon supported his bill. (They probably see
10-figure-lawsuit payouts off in the distance.) But the rest of the
lobby is incredibly tone-deaf.

Meanwhile, prisoners all over the country have been using
smuggled-in cell phones to conduct criminal activities, including
gang-style murders of witnesses. Prisons have asked the government to
allow them to use technology to jam cell-phone signals from within the
prison walls, but the wireless industry is frantically lobbying against
such measures. I guess those gangsta minutes make the difference
between profit and loss for these providers.

On the street, cops aren’t going to pop somebody for texting unless
their superiors (and the law) tell them to. And, secondly, the term
“distracted driving” purports to target all sorts of transgressions,
large and small, when, if fact, it is so broad that it effectively
targets none. Changing the radio station is not the same as
having a 10-minute phone conversation. Taking a bite of a hamburger is
not the same as reading a text message and then responding to
it. Trying to explain away your own selfish and destructive behavior by
pointing the finger at somebody else is the response of an 8-year-old
and shouldn’t be the action of someone who was elected to work in the
interest (and for the safety) of all Arizonans.

(The feds are talking about withholding much-needed highway funds
from states that don’t have laws against texting while driving. Sadly,
only 14 states currently do.)

The results of recent studies are beyond frightening. Having a phone
conversation while driving (even on a hands-free phone!) has a
distraction factor equivalent to the driver being legally drunk.
Someone talking on the phone is four times as likely to crash as
someone who is just driving—and someone who is texting is 23
times as likely to do so!

This never should have become a problem. The law should have come
down hard the very first time some selfish ass decided to combine two
activities, each of which is far too attention-intensive to be combined
with the other. A responsible society—not an autocratic one, as
some people whine, or a totalitarian one, but a responsible one,
something to which we should all aspire—should have nipped that
narcissistic and deadly practice in the bud. In doing so, an entire
generation of young people would have been taught the valuable lesson
that their petty whims are never more important than the safety
concerns of those around them.

I don’t entirely blame young people for texting while driving.
Instead, I blame those people (parents, law enforcement, legislators,
industry members) whose responsibility it was to tell and/or force them
not to do so. It would have been a lot easier to have prevented this
from becoming part of the culture than it will be to bring it to a
halt.

It took America decades (and hundreds of thousands of needless
deaths) to start treating drunk driving like the serious crime that it
is. Let’s hope we’re a bit quicker in this situation.

How many more have to die just so Missy or Dickhead can find out
wussup whenever they feel like it?

This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2009.