Hey chica. Wat r u doin?
Nm. Drivin to atl to meet james. Be back soon
K. howd u do on ur chem test?
An hour passes. No response.
Hey, u make it to atl?
No response.
Kim? U ok?
Kim is not OK. She removed her eyes from the road while attempting to respond to the last text message, and she drove into the rear of an eighteen-wheeler. She was decapitated and died instantly.
Text messaging kills. Keep it out of the car.
Paid for by Concerned Citizens Against Texting while Driving (CCATD).
The above is a fabrication, but it's based on actual advertising.
We've all seen similar billboards and commercials for texting while driving or on the need to wear seatbelts or concerning drinking and driving.
Worse-case scenarios are amplified and exaggerated to scare the bejesus out of everyone.
Drink two light beers and drive home and the mothers of MADD will lump you with child abusers and murderers.
Don't wear a seatbelt one time on a late-night Walmart run and you're endangering yourself and others.
After all, you could become a "human missile."
Text and drive and you might as well be a cannibal.
That's what these ads would have you believe anyway.
Not that drinking and driving or refusing to wear a seatbelt or texting and driving are good.
By all means, don't do any of the above with any regularity.
But these things do happen. We're all human after all, human and flawed.
As much as our generation texts, we've probably all texted behind the wheel.
Sometimes texts are time-sensitive. Quickly responding to a text from the pretty girl or handsome fellow you met at your friend's '80s party lets him or her know your interest level. (Or so we think. The opposite is actually better. Do less.)
Waiting on textual responses can be agony. Motives and reasons are analyzed, self-worth is questioned and vague pleas to deities uttered--all part of our post-modern existence.
So, yes, we all know texting and driving is dangerous and bad, but we do it anyway.
As of now, 30 states have laws banning texting and driving, with other, city-specific laws in place nation-wide.
Auburn's City Council is attempting to pass a texting while driving ban which would take effect Jan. 1, 2011.
The Council is considering making it a secondary violation, meaning "officers could only write a ticket for texting while driving if the driver violated another law, such as speeding, reckless driving or running a red light" (from "Texting while driving ban considered," A1).
Officers in Huntsville, which recently made texting while driving a secondary violation, have received "verbal training" on how to spot texting drivers.
Harry Hobbs, communications relations officer for the Huntsville Police Department, said the ordinance is mostly aimed at awareness.
Which makes sense, as trying to punish those texting at inappropriate times seems near impossible.
Almost all stops would dissolve into he said/she said type arguments: "I saw you texting./I wasn't texting."
Police could perhaps check phone records or even the phone itself on the scene, but that leads to a discussion of privacy rights.
The ordinance proposed as of now is too nebulous and full of gray areas.
Either get serious about stopping drivers from texting or stop invading our privacy.
Regardless, don't text and drive.
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