Every day and every night on streets and roads and highways, an invasive force takes over that risks life and property, befouls traffic in our fair city and across our wonderful state.
The invader is the great equalizer. No human consciousness functions properly while under its control. Drivers can cover hundreds of feet unaware of what is taking place before them as they look down into tiny screens and type with thumbs, while somehow steering. So great are the urges to communicate that control them.
Even healthy young people, their perceptions and reflexes the best they will ever be, are transformed into the equivalent of an 80-year-old man with cataracts, driving to the liquor store to replenish the fifth of Kentucky bourbon he drained the night before.
鈥淚鈥檒l be there in 5 minutes,鈥� such texting goes. 鈥淥MG I hope you have a charger! My phone is almost dead! Please tell me that you have a charger! I鈥檓 almost there!鈥�
Under the power of this invasive thrall, these drivers thumbing their noses at the social contract have not become the undead. They have not become the walking dead.
They have become the brain dead.
It抖阴ap thought-experiment time. Imagine walking down Denver鈥檚 16th Street Mall. You鈥檙e hungry. Before you someone walks while poking at a phone.
He鈥檚 walking too slow. He doesn鈥檛 care. He鈥檚 texting, or answering an e-mail, or something important to do with his phone that must be done immediately for reasons only the brain dead understand.
You try to walk around. But the invasive force controlling the brain dead leaves in place the deep human desire to comport with basic human competence. So he speeds up. You think you鈥檙e in the clear.
Next thing you know, he has slowed, or stopped altogether, and you must pull up or cause mishap.
His walking resumes, but makes no sense, because nothing makes sense in the immediate presence of the invasion.
Now imagine that you get past this mutant, only to face a pair of his cohorts headed right for you.
You dodge and weave, pick up the pace and drop back. By the time you make it to the restaurant, you鈥檙e famished.
The same dynamic is happening before and all around you as you drive, but at much greater speeds. You have to dodge. You have to weave. You must white-knuckle it at a stoplight, staring into the rear view with all hope that the brain dead approaching notices the signal in time. It is a constant, erratic flow of traffic freakishly unattached to the laws that govern the physical universe, and the historic swell of human intelligence and expectation.
Who might save us from this horde?
In 2009, Colorado . They passed a law that charges those caught typing on their phone while driving a $50 fine, and adds a point against a driver鈥檚 license. If caught again, the penalty rises to $100.
The brain dead multiplied, and are out there thumbing their noses at the law as well as the social contract.
Now Colorado lawmakers are to make the brain dead pay attention.
A bill before a state Senate committee has been held over for a vote on Wednesday. It would charge $500 and add five points against a license. There are some trivial ambiguities holding it up. What if the driver wasn鈥檛 among the brain dead, but simply making a call?
As a daily commuter in this besieged metropolis, I say it抖阴ap not enough. This is not a Nanny State worry. Lawmakers need to realize they are dealing with a uniquely powerful and stunningly amoral techo-cultural invasion that exists only to please itself and public safety be damned.
The brain dead must be stopped.
All jokes aside, those typing while driving are killing and maiming and tying up traffic for thousands of hours a year.
In reporting on the issue for The Denver Post, John Frank notes, that a聽state聽Department of Transportation study found that about one in every 10 fatal crashes in 2015 involved a distracted driver. In the past two years, 934 drivers over age 18 were convicted for texting and driving.
The state says that distracted driving contributed to 40 crashes a day, and 1,748 involved cellphone usage.
Charge abusers a monetary fee, yes. And a big one.
Make it count. Heck, go all out. Base the penalty on a percentage of income, and suspend driving privileges for at least several days, if not a month.
Let抖阴ap remember our humanity, and stop this uncaring horde.
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