“Raaarrrow.” (Meant to spell out what an angry cat sounds like.)
That’s the noise Linda often makes when I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Not literally but when I turn into a certifiable grump for no apparent reason.
Her pointing out my surliness in such a playful way will usually do the trick and snap me out of it but she’s off gallivanting around California wine country with son James for a week. So I’m left here alone to deal with my crotchetiness.
What triggered my becoming a Crabby Appleton (rotten to the core) this time? (Anyone identify that reference without Googling?) Well, a combination of things..not the least of which is I stink at bachelorhood. I’m also on a diet that requires ridiculous amounts of water consumption and no booze. It also calls for exercising which I achieve by charging to the bathroom at desperate rates of speed several times an hour.
Then Wednesday I wrote and had to scrap an entire blog about the Sioux Falls City Council proposal to ban drivers from using hand held cell phones in town. It was offered up by City Council member (Wyatt) Erpenbach who announced that studies show drivers talking on cell phones..even hands free cell phones..are as dangerous, or even more dangerous.. than motorists who are legally drunk.
What? You’re kidding right?
Now..just to be clear. I was, and am, front and center in the line to ban texting or any use of a hand-held communications device that requires your attention when you’re supposed to be watching where you’re going. Lord knows we’ve all encountered the abusers. Rarely do I travel our city streets without seeing somebody missing a red light, refusing to budge at a green light without a honk or weaving between lanes because they’ve got their eyes fixated on that little screen in their mitt.
But this business about simply talking on your phone being as hazardous as driving with a snoot full is just plain dumb.
Right?
Wrong.
The evidence from many, many studies..including a whole segment on the popular Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” program shows otherwise.
Now, anybody who reads my stuff knows that I am not a big fan of government bans.
I don’t support this one either, not because I question the science but one has to wonder when the next study will come along showing that talking to your passengers while driving is hazardous or having a radio or eating a doughnut. (god that sounds good.)
Plus, I think even the police realize how complicated such a ban would be to enforce. I recently read that in the three years of the ban on texting and driving, only 50 citations have been issued and we all know from personal experience violators could be pulled over that many times an hour.
Maybe the point in all this is just to try get people to wake- up to a serious situation that didn’t exist a few short years ago.
I hope that can be accomplished without turning me into a lawbreaker if I happen to be driving and answer the phone when my daughter calls to wish me a happy birthday.
There.
I’ve written a whole other blog and I feel much better. You might say I’m feeling more like a glass-is-half-full kinda guy. Then I see that half-full water jug on my desk which must be consumed by sun-down and I’m feeling cantankerous again dadblameit.
