Put The Phone Down And Back Away

Overheard Thursday in Sacramento: Listen up you flabby teenage girlymen! You will no longer be talking on your wimpy little cell phones when you are trying to park your daddy's Hummer in the parking lot down at the mall. While you are trying to call your girlfriend to tell her that you are unable to make the proper corrections even with power steering we will be making sure that all of the fun that you thought you would be having now will not be happening because you are so pitiful and weak.
Or something like that - This week the Governator made the decision that may turn out to be the turning point of his political career. A law signed by Arnold on Thursday will require those crazy teens to put down all cell phones and other electronic devices while driving. No doubt this will allow them to keep their hands free for all manner of other things, but that's really the problem in the first place.
I can remember the first few months with a driver's license were full of plenty of white knuckles, but that initial phase of terror was quickly replaced by a feeling of complete control and mastery. The first time I realized that I could reach the glove compartment, grab a new cassette, eject the old one and replace it with one hand it was like taking off the training wheels. The introduction of open containers and/or a girlfriend pushed the level of mastery to near zen levels. Or so I believed.
I had a number of moving violations in my first few years of driving. I was, to paraphrase Ralph Nader, unsafe at any speed. I am sure that if I was a teenager in California at the opening of this Draconian era, I would be beside myself. Never mind that a 2001 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that sixteen-year-old drivers have a crash rate three times higher than that of seventeen-year-olds, five times greater than eighteen-year-olds and almost ten times greater than drivers ages thirty to fifty-nine. Those are just numbers, and numbers are just a way to keep us down, man. I don't need my personal freedoms, party head, or texting privileges harshed on by Governor Gropenagger. How would he like it if there was a law passed that said you had to be able to correctly pronounce the name of the state you were governor of to be able to drive?
Well, I'm old now and I see the wisdom of having two hands on the wheel and both hemispheres of the brain engaged in the operation of any kind of heavy equipment. Grown-ups in California will soon be restricted to using only hands-free devices while driving. This leaves your hands free for gesturing wildly, fumbling for that open container, or massaging the passenger of your choice. I, for one, am excited by the possibilities.