So, yeah... I believe I've ranted about this before but I feel the need to rant again after five girls were killed in an accident that may have involved the driver sending text messages while driving. I thoroughly hate the idea of people talking on cell phones while driving. I'm a little less pissy when they are using a hands free device, but honestly, it still pisses me off because a distracted driver is a distracted driver... I guess it really started to get to me after living in Colorado. It seemed like every other driver had a phone stuck to their ear while cruising down the road. I'm not trying to sound sexist, or anything, but much more than not, it was a young female. Granted, I lived a block away from a big college campus, but that doesn't excuse the practice. I guess sometimes it isn't the most practical thing to pull over and make or receive a phone call, but you can still let the person know that you're driving and that you'll call them back when it's a little more practical (and much safer) to do so... or you can just not answer the phone until you're able to, safely. I mean, there's a reason for voicemail, y'know?

Now, whether the girl that was driving the car in the recent accident in New York was actually the one sending the text messages (that was sent roughly 40 seconds before the first 911 call was received about the accident) or not, no one will ever know that. While driving and talking on a phone is pretty attention consuming, one can only imagine how much attention has to be diverted in order to send a text message while driving... Text messaging is another one of those things that is just kind of baffling to me in the first place... If you're going to engage in a game of "text message tag" with someone, why not just call them, instead? The text messaging aspect of the accident in New York is only one of a number of things that bothered me with the situation (driver on probationary license, speeding, etc.), but if it was her that was sending the texts and that's what caused her to lose track of where she was on the road, causing the resulting accident, that's just ridiculous... and idiotic... There, I said it.

I firmly believe (and probably stand to be in a minority) that there should be laws against driving and talking/texting on a phone in every state of the Union.

Move Over, Britney...


So, Mike and I were heading to meet some friends to go to the TooL concert. We got to a stoplight near downtown... I look to my right, and BLAM! I saw this... I had a chance to get a pretty good look at the situation and noted these things:

1.) ~3 year old in the backseat... no car seat... no seatbelt (this was easily gathered from the fact that the kid was flopping around all over the place, at one point standing up in the seat).

2.) incredibly small baby... in mother's lap (held with left hand)... while she is driving...

3.) You cannot see it from this picture, but she is also, with her right hand, talking on a cell phone...

So... how in the world is she possibly driving the car with a baby in one hand and a cell phone to her ear with the other?

I pointed this out to Mike... and proceeded to grab my phone and snap this pic. I was pretty pissed. I got to talking about it and wanted to see if I could grab a shot of her license plate, because I was seriously considering calling Children's Services on the bitch... but by the time it struck me, she was too far back. It still totally enraged me.