Thursday, January 22, 2009

Cocooned in a modern SUV

It's not bad enough that driving in Utah is regarded as a right rather than a privilege. It's not bad enough that the driving test is 20 minutes practical, and an open-book multiple choice test. It's not bad enough that lawmakers here don't consider cellphone use in cars to be a problem. And it's not bad enough (apparently) that lane discipline and use of indicators here are two totally foreign concepts. No - now we have to deal with people cocooned in their cossetting 4WD living rooms, complete with video monitors, OnStar (the on-board spy), 48-speaker Bose hi fi systems and enough airbags to cushion a mars landing. The net result is that when these buffoons cruise around a parking lot now, they're so isolated and distracted that they don't notice the small things any more. Like the chap tonight for example, who cut a corner and mashed my shopping cart into a concrete light support. I pretty much owe my life to a $3 bent piece of wire on 4 casters. Had I not been pushing it, I'm sure he'd have merrily run me over. He was on his cellphone to his darling trophy bitch (whom he was picking up and could have spoken to through an open window she was so close) and between that, the smoked glass and him fiddling with one of the LCD monitors, the actual act of controlling his vehicle was a distant fourth priority.
I wish the police would take more of an interest in people like this, but sadly I suspect they couldn't care less.