The Lawbreakers

California passed a law, probably just like your state, and the people have chosen to ignore it, to thumb their nose at the lawmakers and police. What crime do they continue to commit?

They are texting.

Yes, while parked on the freeway, I see people with their heads down, thumbs punching at a great rate. I've seen them text while walking and running, while riding bicycles, and pushing strollers. But they do it in traffic the most.

And while I'm dead set against texting while driving, I say I understand. Because they sit in traffic for hours, crawling ahead with the speed of a California bureaucrat. I stared at a trunk one night while creeping along, I did the math; a person commutes in a big city for his entire working life, and he spends three to five years snorting someone else's exhaust. Why not play a little Angry Birds, check emails, text or write the new 'War and Peace'?

Three to five years. Couldn't someone, somehow, get a college degree? Then couldn't that same person write a book, 'How I Got a College Degree in Traffic'? Do you suppose  the cure for cancer, or at least the common cold, could be discovered under the red lights of taillights?

Contrarily, might these same people, on the edge of greatness, become serial killers or torture animals because they were prevented from texting? Perhaps we should cut them some slack. At least when they are parked.

But texting on a bicycle? These people are nuts.