We Declare This Truth
To Be Self-Evident:
Don’t Text And Drive

   Thomas Jefferson, driving to Philadelphia on I-95 and text-messaging the Declaration of Independence to Ben Franklin and company, before that text-messaging freedom was taken away on July 1 in Virginia:
   When in the course of human events…
   Hold it, gotta turn left here. Oops. Near-miss.
   …it becomes necessary for one people to…
   Whoaa, watch where you’re driving, mister.
   …dissolve the bands which have connected them with another…
   Crazy place to put a mailbox. By the side of the road. Smashing it with my car isn’t a federal offense, it it? No, no, of course not. There is no federal government yet.
   …and to assume, among the powers of the earth…
   Wider lanes. Wider lanes. How can anybody be expected to text message and drive on four-lane roads like these?
   …the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature…
   Yikes and hark! That’s not going to be good for my insurance.
   …and of nature’s God entitle them…
   Watch where you’re driving, lady. Can’t you see I’m writing the Declaration of Independence here (sounds of horns and intimations of an exchange of crude hand gestures as Jefferson nearly hits three other cars, a truck, a speed limit sign and a bridge support).
   …a decent respect to the opinions of mankind…
   Where’s that cup of coffee? I’m parchmented. (No hands on the wheel. Jefferson holds his Quilberry in the palm of the right hand while searching frantically on the floorboard for his double-caffeinated mocha expresso latté supreme. Never tea!!).
   …requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation…
   The turn-off! The turn-off! Missed the turn-off (but not the rear bumper of the car in front of him).
   …We hold these truths to be self-evident…
   (Sound of screeching tires and horns)
   …that all men are created equal…
   (Cursing, more screeching tires, more horns)
  …that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…
   (Jefferson uses words that can’t be printed in a family newspaper or the Declaration of Independence).
   …that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of…
   (The sound of a massive crash, a series of explosions, and then nothing. Nothing at all. But the silence of the grave and what might have been America).

—JKW—

Virginia’s Fine For
Text Messaging And
Emailing While Driving
Is Completely Pathetic

   On July 1, a new law took effect banning texting and emailing by people who are driving a motor vehicle.
   Like it took a rocket scientist to figure how truly recklessly stupid and dangerous it is to send emails and text messages from behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.
   Fasten your seatbelts because the fine for breaking this new law is all of $20 for the first offense.
   Twenty whole dollars and nothing but twenty whole dollars.
   So help us, God.
   No, really. We need divine intervention here.
   Twenty bucks is nothing and there were 28,395 crashes in Virginia last year involving driver inattention. Over 110 people died and more than 14,400 were injured.
   And $50 for the second offense, meanwhile, is nothing plus nothing else.
   There probably won’t be a third offense for text messaging or emailing while driving because there’s little chance the culprit will still be alive. If they do survive there’s a good chance a charge of voluntary manslaughter awaits them and medical bills that make $20 seem like the nothing fine it is.

—JKW—