Friday, September 26, 2008
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Text Ban a Welcome ReliefAYT?
By J’AMY PACHECO
OMG did u c the news? Here’s the 411: b4 long, u won’t b able 2 text in the car cuz it’s 2 dangerous. idk if ppl will take the nu law 2 serious, cuz it’s 2 ez 2 b fast w/ txt. wdyt? ne1?
If you have any idea what I just said, I’m guessing you either have a teenager or a cell phone that allows text messaging. Maybe both. Either way, you’ve probably heard about legislation signed recently that will make it illegal to send or read text message while driving in California beginning in January 2009.
It’s about time.
When the hands-free law took effect, I was surprised by two things: that many drivers didn’t comply, and that it didn’t address text messaging.
I’m not big on text messaging. The only time I send one is when I’m out somewhere with my daughter and we decide to send a picture to my husband. Sending a picture usually requires that we add some text – at least a subject line – so that’s what we do.
If communication is required otherwise, I just make a call. But if I’m driving, I try to avoid using the phone at all, even though I carry one of those things I can stick in my ear to talk via my cell phone.
Maybe it’s because I came of age with the pre-cell phone generation, but I just don’t get the need to communicate 24/7. I only bought a cell phone in the first place because I had a premature baby and wanted to make sure whoever was watching my daughter could reach me in case of emergency.
The only people who used to have my cell phone number were my husband, and babysitters. Over the years, however, friends began watching my daughter for me, and before long, everybody I knew had my cell phone number. If they called my house and I didn’t answer, my purse would ring shortly thereafter.
Now, if I don’t answer either one, I notice that people will keep calling again and again until I answer one or the other. It makes me crazy, because I never wanted to be that available.
Only one friend ever sends text messages to my phone. Fortunately, we communicate more frequently by e-mail, and the only time she texts me is if we’re going to meet and she’s running late. Those messages don’t require a response.
It’s a good thing, because I’m terrible at responding to text messages. Other than OMG and LOL, text-speak like that used in the first paragraph of this column confuses the heck out of me. In takes too much EF4T to decipher abbreviations like g2g bbl cyl ttfn thx; time in which I could just as easily have made a phone call.
My daughter is pretty good at texting. In fact, she would rather text than talk on the phone. If my phone rings, beeps or buzzes while we’re in the car together, I hand it to her, and she complains about having to talk to whoever is on the other end.
As I understand it, this text message ban came about when it did because of revelations that a Metrolink engineer may have been texting instead of watching for warning lights that may have prevented his train from crashing. Of course, car and train bans are two different things, but texting while driving either is clearly neither safe, nor a good idea.
My husband rides a Metrolink train to work every day. I’d like to know that the people at the controls of his train are watching for danger, not texting. I can’t imagine anything that would be more important to a train controller than making sure the train didn’t crash.
Nor can I imagine too many things scarier than the idea of another driver texting, or reading a text message, while rocketing toward my family car at 65 miles per hour.
I still see drivers holding cell phones up to their ears, so I doubt compliance with the new anti-text law will be any more successful. Maybe it’s because the fine for a first offense is only equivalent to about five foofy coffee drinks from Starbucks. It goes up after that, but even the highest fine still costs less than a day at Disneyland.
Making it illegal to text while driving is certainly a step in the right direction. Let’s all hope that common sense prevails – and that some high profile media coverage of text-related tragedies makes people reconsider the importance of sending that text message from the driver’s seat.
Some ppl might think the nu law is un4tun8, but they’ll goi. DQMOT, but imho, atm it’s ttly the w2g.
kwim?
Copyright 2008, Metropolitan News Company