This summer the California Senate sent a bill to the Governator’s desk making texting while driving illegal. That’s right folks, no longer can you hit reply when your vibrating, laughing baby goes off as you steam down the 101. If you really have to tell Stacey that she just made you LOL it may cost you all of fifty dollars should a member of California's finest spot you. How will drivers survive? How did they survive before?!
Senate Bill 28 appears to be one of those completely superfluous laws, laws that invoke the accusation of ‘nanny state’. ‘Why do we need that?’ we ask. Surely, the dangers of taking your eyes off the road in order to comment on last night’s pool party using a complex code of semi-colons and closing brackets seem so obvious that rational, commonsensical grown-ups wonder what the law is coming to. Well, the fact is we aren’t all rational commonsensical grown-ups. At some stage we were all teenagers.
In July 2007, an AAA study revealed that 46% of teenagers’ text while driving. The Albuquerque Tribune spoke to a couple of happy teen texters. Jesse Gallagher, 18, who apparently receives or sends a message every 45 seconds, told the reporter “You learn to text without looking. Then it gets easier” No kidding!! Deseray Gonzalez, 17, says she has memorised the letters so she can watch the road at the same time, “pretty much”. She receives around 500 texts a day. Two questions come to mind: a) how can anyone receive 500 texts a day?! Let alone some kid in Albuquerque! I’m lucky if I get 2!! And b) is a fifty dollar fine enough? Shouldn’t they be off the road? Or jailed? Or worse have their precious party lifeline confiscated? Don’t we need a law to stop this kind of irresponsible behavior?
How many more of these ‘stupid’ or unnecessary laws and rules sent around the planet in chain emails are actually needed, even sensible?
For instance, in Florida, all the doors on public buildings must open outwards. Apart from eliminating that awkward push or pull moment, it seems a completely inessential measure. However, in emergencies it allows for quicker evacuation of buildings as you don’t get the usual bottle necking of crowds at exists.
Some of these seemingly laughable rules have perfectly reasonable and sometimes serious explanations. A city in Kansas has been forced to include a statute against picketing funerals. It’s not a measure against disgruntled family members left out of the will but a special law brought in due to Overland Park’s proximity to the Westboro Baptist Church whose members are notorious for demonstrating at the funerals of homosexuals and more recently those of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, on a lighter note, security guards at the Joe Louis Arena have the right to confiscate anything they deem may be thrown on to the ice during the Red Wings match, particularly seafood. Ever since two fishmonger brothers threw an octopus on to the ice in 1952, there has been a danger of octopi getting caught up in Chris Chelois’ skates.
So the next time you’re frustrated at the apparently superfluous bill that your Governor just signed into law or snigger at the fact that bathhouses are banned in San Francisco (first brought in during the height of the AIDS epidemic; they are now allowed under license), remember there may well be a perfectly legitimate reason the rule exists. We should also remember that many are brought in for a much simpler reason; to protect the rest of us from the really stupid people!
Still not sure why I can’t get a fish drunk in Ohio though!!
