More recently, Alberta legislation has been seriously considering passing laws to punish those who drive while distracted, and this includes texting while behind the wheel, as well as any cell phone use. There are valid reasons for laws that restrict electronic device usage by drivers, and everyone should be willing to save lives and property damage by going along with the law.

I myself have always been fascinated with bizare text messaging deaths. While it does at first seem improbable, text messaging can cause your death, and not only from driving distractedly. It can also lead to painful events if you don’t forward a texting chain letter. That’s right, not only do you receive legitimate and incredibly important life altering messages by text on your cell phone. You can also receive chain letters, junk mail texts and spam texts. Beware of the consequences, if you should happen to just delete that chain text…

Driving while distracted by texting seems like it is just as bad as driving while impaired by lack of sleep. Every year many Alberta drivers hit the ditch, other vehicles, and wildlife because they were foggy with sleep deprivation. What’s the difference between being unaware of your surrounding because you are texting or because your eyes were shut for a few seconds? A car crash is a car crash, even when it is no ‘accident’.

A vehicle incident that happens when you are watching a movie while driving is definitely no ‘accident’ either. This is negligence, operating a motor vehicle while impaired by stupidity. There is no way a person can claim that they didn’t know better than watching a movie while driving. The only way a person could be more negligent would be to talk or text on the cell phone, while eating, while watching a movie on your laptop computer, while driving. Alberta’s Worst Driver, here we come!

Over the years, I’ve witnessed some pretty stupid driver behavior on Alberta highways. More than once I’ve seen men with shaving cream on their faces, driving and using the rear view mirror to shave with a bladed razor. Women use that same mirror to put on various makeup items behind the wheel. These people need to get a life and use their time more efficiently. The rest of us take care of our personal grooming in the comfort of our homes, not in the comfort of our vehicles while traveling above the speed limit on a busy road. Why should these people risk the lives of others that they share the road with, just because they can’t be bothered to get up early enough?

Everyone eats and drinks coffee or other beverages while driving. It’s pretty common to pass someone on the road chowing down on some sort of food, and that’s fine with me. With the use of common sense, I don’t really see a problem with that. Of course, extremely messy foods can spill and cause a distraction that could end up spilling blood on the highway too. It remains to be seen how far the law will go. Eating an apple behind the wheel seems much less hazardous to me than eating any sort of foods that require dip, for example.

What I do have a problem with is blatant stupidity. I recently saw a driver with a laptop precariously perched on her dash, watching a movie. There is so many things wrong with this that I can barely understand the thought processes that led to this. First of all, with the screen of the computer in the way, how in the world could anyone properly see the road ahead? This was a fairly big screen, not just a little netbook, so vision was indeed impaired. Second, what if she hit a bump and it fell on her or slid and hit the floor? Almost anyone would swerve and possibly get in trouble if their laptop fell down while they were watching it. And third, why in the world would anyone think it’s okay to watch a movie while they are driving?

To make matters worse, when this person was first spotted watching a movie while driving her vehicle, she was also talking on her phone, and eating! This activity has to seen as hazardous by anyone. No matter how good of a driver you think you are, you can’t react properly to road hazards if your viewing area through the windshield is reduced, your brain is preoccupied with a movie, you are having a conversation on your cell phone, and you’re eating. Even Chuck Norris can’t pull this one off!

Seeing this horrible example of thoughtlessness made me wonder if there isn’t a problem with multitasking. These days, everyone seems to think they can’t live without being plugged into some sort of electronic device at all times. In our society, it is pretty common to see people of all ages texting and walking, texting and driving, textng and eating, texting and talking. Couples can be seen texting while sitting opposite each other at a restaurant, silent except for the clicking of tiny buttons.  It boggles the mind. Are people texting while they make love too? I have no doubt that somewhere right now, a bride to be has interrupted her own wedding ceremony because a text came in on her crackberry. And of course, there will be a pall bearer somewhere that has to drop his end of the load because his iPhone just let him know the all important text god is calling his name.

It seems to me incredibly lame that no one is capable of driving from one point to another and maintaining full concentration on the road. Alberta drivers aren’t the only ones that text and drive, it is a wide spread problem. I wonder, how many people have died from texting while driving? But driving is only one part of our lives that are affected by this need to keep oneself preoccupied. Most people can’t stand silence, can’t be alone, and seem even afraid of it. The claim they are “bored”, but I think that really they are afraid. Afraid that without all of this technology, without texting, and without constant activity, they will be alone with themselves.The majority of people must not like themselves very much if they are so afraid to be alone with their own thoughts. Why else would they not even be able to quit texting and driving?

Prove me wrong. When you drive down the road, put your cell phone down and concentrate on the road. Especially if you are sharing a road with me in Alberta, Canada. I don’t want some lousy distracted driver causing an accident that might kill me, my wife, my children, or anyone else I know. I’m sure you don’t want to be responsible for killing anyone either, so please strap on a pair and quit it. And for the love of Pete, don’t watch a movie while driving. That’s just silly, as well as dangerous.

Now, it’s not all that uncommon to find beer cans in the ditch (there are still a few dirty, filthy litterbugs out there), but these ones were still full. Almost as astonishing as that was the fact that they were close to 10 feet tall! I did a little bit of calculating (I asked J.D. to do it so I wouldn’t have to, but she was busy) and I determined that the owner of these cans would have to be somewhere between 120 and 144 feet tall.

I was seriously considering climbing up and getting into one of these cans, but then I thought, “What if I drown in there?” Then I thought, “What a way to go!” Then I thought, “What if the owner comes back and finds me in there? What do I do when I find a bug in my beer? I just fish it out then flick it off my finger as hard as I can without caring whether or not it lives, after all it’s only a bug.” Then I thought, “Well, maybe that’s not such a good way to go.”

So I just took some pictures of the cans to prove that I really saw them and then I drove off, thinking about what a great story this would make when I got back to the bar.