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Text Cancer

By Frederick Corrigan

Is it real? You better believe it!

How long will it take to find a cure? Maybe never!

You’re finally getting a chance to travel west. You set back in your seat and enjoy the fresh air coming in through the open window. All of a sudden the driver begins yelling, the wind is now rushing through the open window, the vehicle starts to tip from the speed and then it happens. The driver is struck by an arrow, twenty Indians in war paint appear outside your window, the driver loses control and over the stagecoach goes. Everyone dies as the coach rolls down the embankment and into the river. The driver was only 29 and he didn’t die from text cancer.

The mail bag was heavy, but the mission was clear. Come rain, wind or snow the mail must go. The postman looked to his right and then to his left, as they were getting closer. No help in sight and how do you reach anyone when you’re going through a mountain pass on the back of a horse with outlaws shooting at you. The horse is hit by a number of bullets and falls to the road. The rider is thrown, hits his head on a rock and will never see the light of day. He was only 20 and too young to die, but he didn’t have text cancer.

America was founded by people doing dangerous jobs and in many cases they died very young. They didn’t die from text cancer however, as is certainly the fate of our future generations.

Do you remember going to the movies and watching the movie stars smoking in almost every scene? Everyone thought that smoking was cool until we were awakened to the fact that smoking caused cancer. People with cancer died very young in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Smoking by the movie and TV stars stopped and advertising for smoking products was greatly decreased.

Now, we deal with text cancer!

The bus driver sends a text message to his girlfriend while he’s driving on the highway. The bus swerves off the road, goes down the embankment, it tips over, nine people die and 32 others are injured.

The traffic is heavy, the streets are noisy and the sidewalks are crowded everywhere you look. The 15 year old girl is walking along the sidewalk while sending a text message to her friend. She steps off the curb, not realizing that the other pedestrians had stopped. The car comes around the corner and the young lady is dead before she hits the street.

Do you see the text cancer yet?

Everywhere you look: adults on the street, in the mall, on the train, in the car, the taxi driver, people on the escalator, the pilot on the plane and the kids on the street. Everywhere you look, you see people addicted with text cancer.

Texting while in motion is dangerous to everyone. What chance do our children have to overcome text cancer, if we adults keep setting such bad examples? We set the bad examples with smoking and now we’re doing it with cell phones. If you want to hurt someone, keep texting in motion and it will happen.

In many states, you can’t drive and smoke when you have minors in the car. The second –hand smoke is a health hazard. However, you can text message in most states while you have children in your moving vehicle. Now they won’t die from second hand smoke, they’ll die immediately from the crash.

We need cell phone and texting laws to protect our young children from the bad examples that we adults have already set.

The stagecoach driver and the pony express rider died young because that was a hazard of the job and the west was wild.

The young people in America are dying, because we adults set bad examples. You can expect more deaths in America this year from texting in motion, than American military deaths in the war in Afghanistan.

Don’t text message while in motion, it will kill somebody!

Have a safe Holiday season and a healthy New Year.

Contributor's Note

Hopefully you will realize that texting in motion, of any kind, is dangerous. Talk to your State Reps and get some laws in place.

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In this day and age we all want to stay connected but at what price? Outstanding job! We do need more laws with stiffer penalties about cell phone use when in motion!

I appreciate you words of support and I believe that given enough press on "Text Cancer" we can wake up our Congressmen and Congresswomen.
Best of luck.
Frederick

My thoughts for a long time. This is maybe one thing that could be addressed by a device in the mobile or whatever which detected motion in a sophisticated way, and shut the thing off!
Mobile phone manufacturers and retailers woild object of course, but they charge far too much for all mobile services and get you to spend more with al sorts of api's like e-mail. Fight the good fight Mr Nader :)

Thank you for your support. I will continue to fight, as I believe that this habit of texting is going to be more damaging to our society then TV, Video Games and Teen-age Driving combined.
BE safe.
Frederick

Congratulations on inventing the term 'text cancer'! It's an apt description as it can be destructive, even when not fatal. I personally dislike having to condense my thoughts - which are often nuanced and complicated - into tiny messages. Texting has taken society backward in terms of communicative ability.

Just maybe, if enough of the citizens call it "TEXT CANCER"we might get our Congress to do something about it.
Thank for you comments.
Frederick

If I had all the power in the world, I'd ban driving, not texting while driving.

But seriously, laws alone may not be able to stop people from texting. Perhaps legislative incentive could be coupled with technological solutions, such as CellControl. They make devices that disable driver's phones. Companies that have fleets of vehicles and numerous drivers find this service useful.

I welcome your added intel information on the Cell Control system. I'll do some research and hopefully learn more.
I hope that you are safe from the Lava eruption that, I saw on the news from the Phillipines today.
Stay safe.
Frederick

Frederick, I do love your style! I love the way you use humor (even dark humor) to make your point.

I agree with you about texting. I know people who are addicted to it. I've seen people do it in their cars while driving and have almost been hit by someone who was doing it. It makes me angry. I'm not a fan of "Big Brother" laws, but this is a highway safety issue. And the thing is, many of these people tend to be snooty about the whole thing. We need the laws.

Thank you for your kind words and added intel.
Frederick

You're definitely right bud. I heard that they've even passed no texting laws, with a fine attached this year, which is a nice step in the right direction!

Thank you for your comments Jennifer. As of Jan. 1, 2010
there are 19 states that have texting while driving laws.
Some laws only apply to teenagers. Obviously they think that the adults in those states are already too dumb to train.
Frederick

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