Somebody somewhere did a study that concluded driving while using a cellphone resulted in 1,000 fatalities per year.  I don’t know who did it, or what year it was done (nothing, really), but 1,000 seems like an awfully low number.  It’s just not alarming enough to grab folks’ attention have get them to stop participating in mobile conversations whilst driving.  It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t impact a person’s thought process until it affects a person’s life.  (I guess that’s how it is with most death-inducing behaviour.)   Then he goes crazy trying to raise awareness, petition politicians, pass laws, and all sorts of other annoying things to which he otherwise wouldn’t have given two thoughts.

A thousand deaths a year just isn’t alarming enough.  And even if it were, I’m not sure it would change anything.  It wouldn’t even be a big deal if you could just limit the fatalities to just those folks using the cellphones — they probably had it coming.  But other folks get all mangled in the mess and find themselves ceasing to breathe without the help of some assisted-living machinery — that’s just bad publicity.

The point being, people using a phone, or providing themselves with any sort of distraction while driving, have a tendency to slow down without realizing it.  Especially irritating when stuck behind said perpetrator while driving in the so-called fast lane.  “Get off the phone, A-hole!”  The sad part:  I’m not usually in a hurry, but for some reason it still bothers me that anyone in front of me should ever travel slower than I wish to move.

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Driving While Cellphone was first posted to justinll.com on August 3, 2009.