Driving While Stupid

Driving While Stupid

When I was a teen there was the first major campaign against drinking and driving. Ads, billboards, MADD, peer pressure against getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking, all of these things helped bring about a change in our society. Suddenly the guy who bragged about drinking a case of beer before driving to the party was no longer cool. It was a major societal change that happened quickly and has stuck. Nowadays, there’s even an app for finding a ride home when you’re hammered. No joke, there is.

So I’m thinking it’s time for a new campaign for drivers: stop driving while stupid. I mean it. Today I watched as a car in front of me made a left hand turn. When he couldn’t see around the bus in front of him. With an on coming car. The only reason he wasn’t T-boned was because the driver in the other vehicle wasn’t stupid.

Maybe it’s because I now drive to work instead of walk, but I’m seeing a whole new level of stupid. Eating a Big Mac while driving? Everybody’s got to eat sometime I suppose, but don’t use both hands. Fiddling with the radio while driving? Mild but still stupid. Looking the person who’s in the back seat in the eye while driving? Now we’re moving up the stupid scale. Scraping only the driver’s side of the windshield after a night of wet snow? What are you thinking?

But what really gets me going is the texting. We know talking on the phone is dangerous enough. But texting? With your head down, focusing your attention on tiny buttons as you try to type a message that could probably wait? What is so important that you would risk your life and the lives of people in your vehicle and the ones around you? Would you really like your last words to be “LOL”? If Don Cherry were doing commentary on a car crash caused by a person texting, he’d probably say “You gotta keep yer head up as you cross the centre line, kid.”

So next time your phone gives you the “ding dong” letting you know that you’ve got a text…do us all a favour and leave it till you get there. It’ll wait.