text/drive

Whoah! Did you see that?! The loudly swearing, Clifford-backpack wearing loon electric-sliding across the lanes? Of course you didn’t, but the world now knows your dismal 405 rush hour status as the last words texted by a free man while you blindly slam through both femurs sideways. It’s ok though; nobody else saw it happen either.

In the city of no contact, it seems nobody can stop browsing their contacts. Intoxicated on the essence of translated pixels leaves the denizens hungering for their thumbed socializing. At the expense of expanding commute times, no less.

Living is easy with eyes closed. Driving, not so much. But hey, maybe this belief that our cars run on autopilot will spur an idea in our Beemers and Benz. Evolution, right? Simply natural selection, as long as our scientists and industry leaders refrain from text-hazardly auto travel, we might find some talk-to-text features, or better yet, transportation abilities removing the risk entirely.

Let’s count the culprits:
• The wheel-rest: probably the safest solo mode around, where one texts with both hands around the wheel (never securely grasped) but keeps the eyes up more often than not.
• The friendly hand: have a buddy do you a solid and read and write that personal nugget of phone wisdom.
• The nodding dummy: by far the most employed and unquestionably the move that makes me cringe and speed away fastest. You there, considering the distance and flexibility you need to gain to fellate yourself, look up. The world goes on around you, whether baby girl knows how much you miss her or boss man realizes you’re on the way to work (in that instant), though the connection of that text may read your eulogy.

Now who’s the biggest violator? You. Me. Yes, I text sometimes. But I am MMS averse, so I know my limits. “Yes. No. 5 min.” Look how evolved my car-speak is, I bring grown men and young girls to tears with this command of language. Yet I read the road with 99th percentile perfection, while so many of you cannot even read the prompt.

I realize we take our life into our own hands each and every trip in the car we take, the danger multiplied exponentially when on a motorbike. The kicker came when I witnessed motorcyclists grazing texts, literally typing the fine line between this lane and the next car’s windshield. This happened on the 405 north of Sunset. Where the curves and turns are. In rush hour traffic. Weaving between lanes. “What the fuck?” I ask. I can think of at least ten more enjoyable ways to die.

The truth is, I don’t really care whether you text and drive. Or let your preschooler take the wheel. Or do a line on the dashboard, while sitting cross-legged, beer-goggles shielding the midnight sun, as you reverse down the wrong side of the highway. Just don’t hit me, or the other kind people nice enough to watch the road. You play your videogame (reset button broken), while I cover the ground paved by road, for it is not my time to lie beneath.


Weston Finfer