WTF! No more texting?

Following the lead of other provinces, namely our own, today the Ontario and B.C. governments have made it illegal to text message while driving. This may go down as the single most moronic law on the books. What truly makes this theatre of the absurd is not the law itself, but that we need the law in the first place. While we're at it, why not ban the handling of venomous snakes while driving, or performing self-administered acupuncture, or using a waffle iron? Well, because those things would be rather distracting. As my teenage son would say, "well, duh." Although, fresh waffles in the car does sound rather nice. MMMW.

Admittedly, I'm rather biased on this issue. I just don't get the whole texting craze. Email I can understand. The immediacy of the technology combined with ability to craft a message so as to avoid misunderstanding, and have a written record of the exchange, is very appealing. The thought of thumb-typing a coded message on a microscopic keyboard, not so much. It takes all of my limited skills to use the keypad on the microwave. QL.

Okay, I get the appeal of texting amongst the younger generation. It has a bit of a passing-a-note-in-class kind of thing going for it. There's the whole secret, hip, coded language, LMFAO. Plus, if you're in a noisy club, or a dull meeting, you can still keep in touch if voice communication is otherwise impossible or disruptive. TWHE.

I can't help but wonder what Alexander Graham Bell would make of this? Having revolutionized the communications industry by inventing a device that allows us to talk to another person not only across town, but around the world, using ACTUAL HUMAN VOICES. SLAW.

Recently the Ford Motor Company, who seem to have emerged from the great North-American automaker crisis as a leader, introduced a hands-free device that will actually read your text-messages as you drive. It's a clever marketing manouevre, but at the same time, consider the ponderous complexity of a technology that uses a simulated human voice to read a five word, coded message, when you could use the same device to actually call the person using an ACTUAL HUMAN VOICE. 2G2BT.

I have friends that I consider to be intelligent, informed and rational people (and yet they still enjoy my company, go figure) who openly admit to texting while driving. They claim that texting is the only way to stay on top of what their teenagers are up to. I was a teenager once, back in the jurassic period, and the one thing I do remember was that the last thing I wanted was my parents knowing what I was up to. If they had the temerity to stick their noses in my business, they did so using ACTUAL HUMAN VOICES. RUS?

My bias aside, most everyone would agree that texting requires significantly more attention than virtually any other form of communication. Again, because the keypads are tiny, the screens are tiny and you have to make sure that what you are typing actually makes sense, complete with emoticons so that people will know if you're being sarcastic, cute, serious or flirty; all nuances that, by the way, can be communicated with an ACTUAL HUMAN VOICE. IMO.

So, now we have to waste our tax dollars on legislators to draft a law to get people to realize something that should be patently obvious: typing on a tiny keypad and reading a tiny screen while operating a 3000 lb vehicle at high speed is dangerous. Meanwhile we can't seem to come up with some way to keep greedy, bottom-feeder low-lifes from swindling our grandparents out of their life-savings. WTF.