I’m surprised to not see blogs on Sen. Obama and McCain’s evangelical church question and answer forum Saturday night conducted by Rev. Rick Warren. Did no one else watch it?
There will, of course, be differing opinions as to who did the best at answering the questions. For those who strongly support Obama or McCain, its doubtful the forum changed any minds, but for those undecided, I though the forum presented a fairly good character analysis of the two candidates. There was, in my opinion, a stark difference between how each responded to Rev. Warren’s questions.
Any opinions?
Thursday morning I was traveling westbound on I-435 at Metcalf on my motorcycle on my way to Olathe to meet some friends for breakfast. To my left was a man in a car talking on his handheld cell phone. He then reached across the front seat of his car with his right hand, picked up several sheets of paper and apparently was reading their content to the person on the other end of the conversation. This required that he steer the car with his right forearm, which he rested on the steering wheel, his left hand held the phone. This was at 8:10 AM, in heavy commuter traffic; in a construction zone at 65 MPH. Needless to say I immediately put some distance between him and myself.
Later I got to thinking about this. We are all familiar with the term “deep pockets” when it comes to lawsuits. If this guy had gotten into an accident and injured someone while on his cell phone, then it seems reasonable to me that the injured party could file suit against this guy’s cell phone service provider along with the cell phone manufacturer. I see it as a question of product liability. Cell phones don’t come with a warning sticker advising users that their use while driving or operating heavy equipment poses a substantial risk, but they should. Why not go after these people if their service and/or product contribute to an injury or death of another person? I would think that civil action attorneys would be all over this. These cell phone companies and manufactures have some pretty deep pockets.
I also heard on the news that Chrysler, for its 2009 model year, will be offering a model that has in-car WiFi. Now the promo says it will be for passenger use, but we know how that goes. This is just what we need, another distraction for drivers. While auto manufacturers tout their vehicles performance and safety, they keep adding more and more devices to distract the driver from his/her main area of responsibility. To my way of thinking, this overrides (nullifies) any safety features they may offer on their vehicles.
For both motorcycles and 4-wheel vehicles, the various government regulatory safety agencies have focused on equipment and design for safer crashes rather than provide education and training for crash avoidance.
