Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Getting the priorities straight

More and more states and cities are passing laws against hand-held cell phone use.

And while there are some studies to indicate using a cell is distracting to drivers, and therefore constitutes a safety hazard, some contend that other, more serious problems should take precedence.

I do think those critics have a solid point. With murders, robberies and violence in the streets, we would seem to have plenty of work for our law enforcement to do. Certainly I think most would agree those would take precedence over stopping Johnny from talking with Buffy on the cell phone.

However, to the credit of the folks in California (you won’t hear me say that often), I do think we need to do something about many four-wheelers’ driving habits.

How many times have you seen someone putting on makeup, turning completely around to discipline a kid, doing paperwork from their job, bending over to pick up something off the car floor … or nearly hitting your rig because they were gabbing on the blasted phone instead of driving?

That’s what the folks in California are trying to put a stop to.

Of course, if instead of that, they required driver’s education, that very well might solve that problem – and a whole mess of other problems.

But I guess that would be too hard for them to do.