Blog
Gene Cox: “Driving is important business.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were more auto crashes caused by bad drivers than all the DUI drivers combined. A bad driver may be one who lacks the skills to pilot a car successfully, or one who simply doesn’t pay attention to what he or she is doing. Smart phones may be the main culprit. There is something in all of us that causes us to say ‘hello’ when the phone rings….even if we are driving at the time. So, we have to reach for the phone and hit the proper button to answer it. Presto, at least two seconds subtracted from the job at hand….which is driving the car. One can hit telephone poles during two seconds of inattention. That happens often. Or one may hit another car, possibly one I am in, and I don’t like that. Please don’t answer the phone when you’re driving. I mean, really…let it go to voice mail. Sometimes we see a driver with the smart phone pressed against the side of his or her head so intently that driving the car seems incidental. Bam! Another telephone pole bites the dust. Note that all of this is well short of trying to text while driving which everyone knows is really stupid. I want to draw attention to this little two second thing that all of us do from time to time. Two seconds is a lot of time when you’re driving 40 or 50 miles an hour. Anything that takes a driver’s eyes off the road for two seconds is a bad thing. That may include eating a hotdog, especially if it has chili on it and chili begins to drip on your pants. Hot dogs are best eaten while sitting still. It avoids accidents involving other vehicles, and of course your pants. Driving is important business. Anything that compromises that business can be a terrible thing. In the time it has taken you to read this, there will be car wrecks somewhere because the driver allowed a distraction to take his or her eyes off the road. No one wins when a car crashes, except perhaps Bruce’s Body Shop. Let’s all consider this every time we get behind the wheel. Bruce has enough money already.