Hands on the Wheel, Jerk!

It’s 2017. Mobile phones are not a new innovation. By now we’ve absorbed their impact on our lives. We understand how, where, and when to use them safely. None of that should be news to anyone in the so-called civilized world.

So why in the hell do we still see so many people using their hands to hold their phones up to the ear when they should be using that hand to drive? WTF is wrong with these idiots?

Hey, dipshit: you’re the sole controller of a two-ton killing machine. One false move could mean instant death for you, your passengers, and anybody unlucky enough to be anywhere near you. That might be just a little more important than, oh, ANYTHING ELSE THAT COULD POSSIBLY NEED YOUR ATTENTION ON THAT GODDAMN PHONE.

Yet we see people do it all the time. Truck drivers. Uber drivers. Parents dropping their kids off at school, for chrissakes. A National Highway Safety Administration survey indicates that, at any given moment, one in 20 drivers in the United States is holding a cellphone to his or her ear. During daylight hours, that works out to 660,000 vehicles.

As you read this, two-thirds of a million cars are careening around American roads under the dubious control of one-handed clowns without the sense to keep their hands on the wheel. There’s room for debate about whether handsfree calling is as safe as it should be. But there’s no argument, none whatsoever, that holding a phone and driving at the same time is an awful, stupid, potentially tragic idea.

Knock it off. Knock it the fuck off. If you haven’t figured out some other handsfree setup, here. Take this Jabra Style Bluetooth Headset. You can take incoming calls with a quick tap. It automatically adjusts voice volume to account for ambient noise.

And by offering it for the previously unheard of price of 13 bucks, we’ve eliminated the last possible excuse you might have. Oh, is that still too expensive? Does it sound too inconvenient? Well, how expensive or inconvenient would it be if you died? Or killed your kids? Or killed some innocent people? And had to face manslaughter charges? All because you were too damn dumb to leave your phone alone?

We know how tempting it is to reach for that ringing phone. We know because we still, in very occasional moments of weakness, do it ourselves. And we hate ourselves for it just as much as we hate anybody else. This scolding starts with the Meh in the mirror.

There are two kinds of handsfree calls: the kind you take with an affordable little Bluetooth headset like this Jabra Style, and the kind you make because your hands were amputated after an easily avoidable distracted-driving accident. Which kind do you want?