JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for December 15, 2013

You can’t fix stupid though

What about the kids in the back seat texting? The chip would have to be set to disable only the front seat phones. And it wasn’t too long ago that some idiots were selling driver air bag replacement kits with a DVD player screen so you could watch movies while driving. This country is getting stupider by the minute.

I have had a similar idea for years and I really don’t care if the passengers could use their phones or not. All that would be needed is a software update on the phones to disable them when moving above a certain speed using the GPS.

Turn off the phone! You can’t make people do that, yet it’s so easy!

For me I only use cell phone emergency only, meaning turned off.

Ya shouldn’t need to be told…

I recently watched an online documentary video, “From One Second to the Next” by Werner Herzog, sponsored by AT&T. I’ve bookmarked it for my 14 year old granddaughter to see. Google it. Watch it. Have kids you love watch it. Hopefully, it will be 35 minutes that gets their attention and they remember these stories when they start driving.

If it weren’t for all the innocent people who get killed, I’d say “Darwin rules.”

There was a multi-car accident Thursday here caused by a speeder doing far above the freeway limit. Was she drunk? Was she texting? We don’t know yet.We do know she badly hurt innocent people, died in the crash, and our daughter who was hit saw things nobody should ever have to see. I weep for the first responders everywhere who know exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about and I read this strip thinking oh if only! If only people knew what it’s like to sit in the waiting room at the ER like we did three nights ago, waiting to hear, fervently glad that our daughter at least was still alive while just broken for the 45-year-old who wasn’t.

Last December husband had a bad cold and we were stuck in the house a week. He was feeling better and I suggested dinner out. We live on a 4 lane road. He pulled out of driveway and we were, literally, in front of the house next door in the left lane waiting to make a left turn. Our side of the road had no one on it but us. The other side had traffic and we had to wait several (at least 5) minutes to turn. Suddenly husband swore and as I turned to ask what he forgot at home, the car was hit so hard in the rear that the thought “This is it” went through my head.

The back of the car was completely gone. My eyeglasses were missing. My cell phone had been in my hand (I had checked an appointment on it and put it back into the case before we left and was holding it to put in my pocket when we got out) and was gone. After checking with each other that we felt okay, the ONstar came on and we gave the information about the accident. Husband had somehow managed to pull towards the side of the road after we were hit (with right rear wheel gone).

The other guy got out of his car so he was okay. He was young. He kept repeating that he never saw us (road well lit and straight). People came and one asked him if he was on his cell phone, his answer was “I have bluetooth”, not a no. We never got to dinner and dealt with the police for 2 hours. Officer said that since our stories agreed there was no problem.

Car, a day short of 6 months old, was totaled. I finally found my eyeglasses in the armrest of the back seat the next day, luckily undamaged and my cell phone was found on the left side of the dashboard. We each had an ache in the back of one leg, but were okay.

When we got the police paperwork a week later (luckily we had another car to use to go get it, they will not mail it) it said the cause of the accident was “following too closely” The road has a 40 mph, if it took him at least 4 minutes to hit us he was not “following too closely”. We are guessing that he was doing 60 mph, not uncommon on this street as there is light traffic and hit us at full force as he never braked. I called Police Dept and they cannot change the report, so I sent the error to our insurance co. (While our ins co was handling everything I had expected a call or letter from his for courtesy.)

A few months pass, we have bought a replacement car and now have a bigger car loan. We take our other car in for service and are talking to the mechanic/owner. He knows the guy who hit us, guess what – HE WAS TEXTING. We almost died. Our entire Christmas season was ruined with dealing with everything. Husband was not sure in January if his pain was from the car accident or something else, and he was texting and went off on his merry way with a new car lease. And the accident is not even listed as caused by texting!!!!!

That first panel is VERY good commentary. And Crunchy has a good point, in that most people don’t see the horrors police face every day. Plus, the near-universal human trait of thinking that it could never happen to ME….(Just a thought—do comic strip sites like this have rules against showing blood? Because that first panel probably should have had some showing.)