I got my first cell phone about the year 2002. I wouldn’t even have had one then if I hadn’t been dating Jim. He decided to get one and wanted me to have one, too. Otherwise, I really don’t know how long I would have gone without one. In fact, I had my cheap little flip phone until just last summer, when my friend (and the best babysitter on the entire planet!), Jasey, decided to drag me into the 21st century. She actually drove me to the mall, took me to the Apple Store and told me what kind of iPhone I should have.
Don’t get me wrong. Now that I have it, I love it. It is really nice to be in the car (when Jim is driving and I’m the passenger) with my family and decide, “Hey, let’s find the nearest Bounce U to take the boys” and be able to pull out that iPhone and call up Siri and ask her where the nearest one is. Or, to be in Ohio and get driving directions to a new place in Cleveland we decide we’d like to see. It is a fantastic device that really does make life easier. It’s also nice to be out and about and be able to check emails and texts if I need to or to get on Facebook and check in with friends when I have a down moment somewhere.
BUT… those down moments for me are NEVER in the car. When I am in the car, my phone is in my purse, where I can’t even see it. When I hear that “ding!” that says I just got a new text, I don’t see it until I reach my destination. My current ringtone is The Beatles, “I’m Happy Just to Dance with you.” When I hear that song playing away, it plays away into voicemail if I am driving. I don’t even consider pulling it out to answer it.
So, when I am driving through town to take my kids to camp and I see a car swerving to the left into my lane when there is another car directly to my right, and I have nowhere to go, it infuriates me when I then see that, the reason that person is almost smacking into me and my kids is because he is too self- important to put his phone down while going 50 miles per hour down Georgia Avenue. What is even crazier is that, the next three cars that drove by me were ALL LOOKING AT THEIR PHONES! So, I started looking around me (while at stop lights, not while driving 50 miles per hour down Georgia Avenue) and I was amazed at how many people are really foolish enough to be doing this!
Sorry, I guess I am on my soap box a bit here but, it makes me absolutely insane to think that those people are not only taking their own lives in their hands by looking at their phones while driving, they are also taking my life and the lives of my children in their hands… not to mention everyone else around them.
When I met Jasey four years ago, she was only 16 years old. She was driving my kids to camp for me one day and I called her. I wasn’t thinking, or, I thought enough time had gone by that maybe she had arrived at camp. She didn’t pick up. She did call me back about 10 minutes later and said they had just arrived. She actually said to me, “Sorry that I didn’t pick up when you called but I never answer my phone when I’m driving.” A sixteen year old is wise enough to know this. Why aren’t 40something year old adults? Put your phone down folks. You can call them back or check that text later.