Return of the Phone Drones: Driving Edition

[6_bleen_7]

I just spotted a cell-phone-oriented meme out there somewhere, and before it rages through my Friends List like a bad case of stomach flu, I'd like to say this for the record:

I hate cell phones. Really, really hate them. I'm not joking. I detest them in a car; I detest them near and far. If I had to choose a word to describe my feelings about

Comments

[deadrelatives]

Hate to disappoint...I do talk on my cell phone in the car. Only when its stopped though. :-) I have a pre teen who doesn't need to see me talking on my cell in the car..I don't want her doing it in a few years when she starts driving.

[6_bleen_7]

Talking on the phone in a parked car is just fine. Glad to hear that you want to set a good example.

[samwibatt]

I totally agree that talkin'-drivin' (as my friend Rod calls it) is stupid, and I applaud deadrelatives for cell-phoning only when stopped. If I get a call on the road, I mostly ignore it, or if it's really important, pull over somewhere to take it. I think the law will catch up with the dangerousness of it as soon as enough children undergo the exact senerio1 you describe above, or somebody in the nobility gets flattened because of it. And yes, the headset exception is asinine.

I know I look like an idiot talking on the cell, because my phone is a Nokia N-Gage, which you hold up to your head in a very odd manner. One friend described it as “You look like you're talking into half a sandwich.” But now that I'm getting on in years I'm less and less worried about looking like an idiot.

But I have to say that, while talkin'-drivin' is the most dangerous manifestation of cellmania, the most repugnant to me is the dorks who originate, take, or continue calls while they're in the men's room, functioning. Enough said.

1 I do know how to

[6_bleen_7]

I just recalled something funny (both "ha-ha" funny and "What the hell?" funny): I was actually relieved when my coworker Dongmei started bringing a cell phone to work. She hardly ever talked on it at work, which was good; but the huge benefit was that her husband stopped calling the office every evening exactly five minutes after she left. His sense of timing was uncanny, for her departure time varied by at least an hour. But somehow, he knew to call at the exact moment when it was no longer feasible to try and run her down on her way out.

[samwibatt]

The counterexample: my coworker, who sits about 18” away from me in the lab, will often have really loud arguments with her mother on her cell phone while I and my other colleagues squirm with discomfort.

It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't address her mother as “Mommy”.

[6_bleen_7]

I do the same thing on my bike, and after dozens of exchanges, I have yet to find anyone who appears to have the slightest bit of remorse about nearly killing another human being as a result of their own stupidity. However, I have had some fun with pulling up right next to someone who is completely zoned out in their car, and from a distance of only a couple of feet, either yell "HEY!" or honk my horn (if I'm in my car). Their look of utter shock, as they're suddenly yanked back to Earth, is priceless.

Far too many drivers seem to think that they exist in a completely self-contained, independent universe when they get in their car (this includes lots of people besides the phone drones). I make it a point to remind them they don't.

[6_bleen_7]

And it's a lethal weapon! Double the fun!

[6_bleen_7]

Aw, gosh, thanks-and welcome!

When I was in Las Vegas earlier this year, I noticed that every prepubescent mall rat was constantly glued to a cell phone. I though that was just Las Vegas. I'm appalled to think that might be universal.