PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
If you want to put yourself at risk of death to send texts or take selfies while DRIVING, no one can stop you.
And if you want to just go ahead and earn yourself a Darwin Award by driving right into a tree or a telephone pole, you can do that, too.
But please remember, you’re NOT ALONE out there.
Every time you drive distracted, you put OTHERS at risk.
Innocent people. Someone’s mother or father or daughter or son could die because you decided that texting someone or taking a picture of yourself was more important to you than their lives.
In case this isn’t clear:
YOU could DIE from someone else texting or taking selfies while driving.
I could DIE from someone else texting or taking selfies while driving.
Any member of your or my family could DIE from someone else texting or taking selfies while driving.
This could happen TODAY. Or TOMORROW. Or NEXT WEEK.
And that’s NOT cool.
While I see all kinds of shades of grey in life and rarely draw a fine line, I think anything that puts other people’s lives at risk for your own vanity or your own idiocy is WRONG.
If you are behind the wheel of a vehicle and it is moving, it is YOUR responsibility to operate it safely.
If you are driving, DRIVING should be your primary concern.
Not who texted you, not what’s going on on facebook or instagram, not how good you look in the mirror.
So find a place to PULL OVER safely and STOP THE CAR if you want to do those things.
That is what SMART people do. That is what people who don’t want to kill or be killed by distracted driving do.
So please, if you text and drive, stop it. Seriously. Just wait and pull over.
Pulling over in a safe place is a small price to pay for saving lives.
See also:
- VW video
- Werner Herzog’s “From One Second To The Next” – Texting While Driving Documentary (video)
- It can wait