A woman in Ohio was sited for child endangerment because her child was not in a car seat. If that was not enough she was on the cell phone, Oh yea, she was also breast feeding the child at the time.Link to the news story in question
There is no medicine for stupidity.
How does this differ from drivers with little dogs in their laps while they’re driving? I see it all the time.
Why don’t they get tickets?
Or, how about people with books in the steering wheel, reading while driving? Or people typing on their laptop computers while driving, or people applying makeup, or shaving, while driving?
These things are happening every day, in every city, all across America. “Driving” has ceased to be an activity in and of itself. Now it’s just part of the multi-tasking you have to do on your way to work or wherever you’re going. Or at least that seems to be the case for most people. Sad, but true.
Personally, I still find driving to be an engaging activity. I enjoy it, and I have no problem whatsoever focusing my attention on driving, short trip or long.
I don’t own a cell phone or an iPod. I like music but don’t have to have it on a car trip. I like the rhythm of the road, and that’s good enough for me.
To answer your question; NO, “they” will never learn.
I’m sure she’s a good driver–just ask her.
I recall as a child, my Dad zipping up two sleeping bags together to make one big one, so my two brothers, and I could clime into it in the very back of the big old 1970 Dodge Polara station wagon being totaly unrestrant for the long trip to Grandmas house. Very wonderfull memeries, dangerous Yes.
I would say this women only needs to be seriously educated.
When I was very little, my family went from CA to Colorado in a Datsun hatchback. I sat on my mother’s lap, and someone lay on top of the luggage in the hatchback area, or so my mother tells the story. No seat belts for anyone, of course. I clearly remember making the same trip in later years with some of us in the back of a pickup (on top of the luggage and camping gear), which had a camper shell on the top. Those were different times.
BTW, my cryptic reference above is to the fact that almost all of us see ourselves as good drivers. Thus, we can convince ourselves that it’s safe to do any number of unsafe things because we’re special. All of the people I know who use cell phones while driving believe themselves to be good drivers, and don’t see using a cell phone while driving as unsafe.
Joseph, I See This Nearly Everyday …
… Some dolt driving along with one hand clutching the all-mighty cell phone to the side of the head, while the other hand is fondling a cigarette and the steering wheel, simultaneously. The cell phone conversation and smoking the cigarette are apparently of primary concern and the “driving”, secondary.
I get the feeling that these jerks not only think that they are good drivers, but they enjoy showing-off their driving prowess to anybody who dares to cast a glance.
It makes me wish that if there is such a thing as “karma”, its “balloon payment” would come due right while I was watching. A blown (exploding) transmission or something along those lines, delivered precisely and immediately to the distracted dolt, would do it for me.
One day, a car company will make a vehicle that literally drives itself. With integrated GPS navigation, the “owner” merely has to state their destination, and the car will move by itself.
It might actually be for the better since they could integrate speed limits and such into the vehicle’s drive system. No more speeding, no more weaving in and out of 5 lanes on the freeway. With the vehicles “talking” to one another, no one will get injured because all the vehicles know where each on of them is at and will move accordingly to allow for the flow of traffic to merge and exit.
The day this happens, said car company will become VERY rich.
Last night, I watched a program on the TruTv network called, Speeders (last night’s TV offerings, in general, were really poor, IMHO, so I wound up watching this time-waster). This show features videos of police officers in various parts of the country pulling over speeders, but the entertaining part is the ridiculous attitudes and the bizarre excuses that these people come up with to justify their speeding.
The most memorable segment, perhaps because of the young lady’s chest measurement and her low-cut blouse, included the officer talking to the young woman about her numerous previous tickets for the same offense. Including the ticket that was written while we watched, it turned out that the young woman had racked up 7 speeding tickets in about one year, and had already had her license suspended once.
Her comment to the cameraman–presumably out of earshot of the officer–was that she “always got these tickets while talking on the cell phone”. When asked how much time she spends on her cell phone, she stated something like, “if I am driving, I am talking on the cell phone”. The young woman was not obstinate or nasty, but she clearly couldn’t see the connection between her phone usage and her inability to focus on her driving.
Yup! These people are out there on the roads, endangering all of us. This is really scary stuff, especially since this young woman’s chest measurement was clearly larger than her IQ.
"How does this differ from drivers with little dogs in their laps while they’re driving? I see it all the time.
Why don’t they get tickets?"
The police have to see it first. I rarely see police during my commute. I’m sure that they are around someplace, but not on the highways I travel at the time I travel. Maybe it’s too dark to read (in the morning).