Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Driven to Distraction

Much has been made lately about "texting while driving" and legislation that has been written to make this obviously dangerous practice illegal. I have over the years witnessed people engaged in even more hazardous activity than texting behind their own steering columns while I sat haplessly behind my own steering wheel. I have seen drivers eating as they wove through traffic more times than I could count. I have watched people combing their hair numerous times as they drove. I have occasionally seen ladies putting on their makeup, particularly lipstick as they tried to navigate through traffic. I often observed people talking on cellular phones (not hands-free) as they tooled around town. I have occasionally observed a driver speaking on said cell phone, smoking a cigarette, and attempting to turn the wheel- talk about multitasking. I was once even amazed by the sight of a gal reading a magazine as she guided her car through heavy traffic. You can legislate all you want, and certainly all these distractions to safe motoring should be illegal, but the list of activities behind the wheel that should be legislated against is too long to actually pass into law. I guess what grandma said was correct- "you can not legislate common sense".

No comments: