Deadly Read
I am fuming. I was driving to work today in traffic and saw a very disturbing thing. Going approximately 50 mph I pass a blue BMW 3 series coupe and see its driver … reading a news paper. Actually reading it and flipping pages. Also the driver has a blue tooth headset on and he is … talking on the phone. The traffic was not bumper to bumper. We were going at 40-50 mph. That is approximately 70 feet per second. 70 feet per second! A lot of things can go wrong on the road in a second. Is any driver capable of paying their attention to the road while reading and talking on the phone?
This got me thinking - what if a police officer sees this. Is this worth a citation? And if it is then is it a worse offense than say driving in a carpool lane while not having passengers in your vehicle. Ironically enough half a mile ahead there is a police cruiser sitting on a side of the freeway. Although inclined to pull over and ask the cop if I decided not to. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
I am still sort of fuming over what I saw. The driver of that BMW does not realize how many people lives (his own life included) he jeopardizes by doing what he was doing. And in my opinion this is one of the worst road offenses there is. I am almost positive that no one has actually gotten a ticket for reading while they are driving. May be our glorious highway patrol has to get their lazy asses moving on the road more frequently to spot these offenders. Oh wait. I forgot that siting on a side of the road with your radar on is a very important and complicated enough task. What was I thinking?
Still fuming …
September 27th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
The problem is that we all do this from time to time. Not reading the newspaper while driving (some people just plain don’t read at all but that’s another issue:)) but talking on the phone while driving. I realize how dangerous it is since I deal with people on cell phones on daily basis, still I talk myself. Until there is law against it with harsh penalty (not $20 like they are proposing) we will still do it. Make it $2000 fine and the roads will be a lot safer.
September 27th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Talking on the phone is not as bad as reading. And especially not as bad as reading and talking at the same time. But I hear you.
October 6th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Thank you for sharing!
October 16th, 2007 at 8:51 am
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