Wednesday, October 15, 2008

mechanical mayhem

In this digital age, people have invented new and unique ways to be lazy, use their brain less, and relinquish more of our free will. There is a developing technology that will now be able to track whether or not your cell phone is traveling at ‘car speeds’ and will instruct your network to reject/hold the call. It alerts the caller that you are traveling and cannot answer the phone, and the program will relay missed calls and text messages once it deems the cell phone ‘safe.’

I understand that many individuals are killed in automobile accidents. But this is RIDICULOUS! How does this device know whether or not you are a passenger or on a subway, bus, or train? Can it tell whether or not it’s an emergency? What exactly is car speed? No single piece of technology, no matter how advanced, can make such judgments. The last time I checked, only people can. The person who developed this technology had a child killed in an automobile accident where the other driver was using a cell phone. From that point on, he ‘tried’ to stop doing it, but, and I quote, he found it ‘too hard to not answer a ringing phone.’

Since people obviously lack with will power, it got me thinking why don’t I invent a refrigerator that won’t open if you’ve reached a certain caloric intake for a given period of time? Or here’s an amazing innovation that has been around forever and people seem to have forgotten about. It’s called self control! Is it really THAT hard to not answer a phone or just, I don’t know, TURN IT OFF?!!? If it is, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, much less a cell phone.

Stop using technology or government legislation to make your life better/easier because you refuse to self motivate. Why not invent vanity mirrors that don’t come down unless the car is in park? Or blinkers that turn themselves off after a certain period of time, so I don’t have to rear-end you cause you’ve been driving for 5 miles with your turn signal on. I mean I’m all about cool gadgets and fancy innovations, but there is a point where enough is enough and things are just ridiculous. I love iPods, moving sidewalks, and air bags, but technology is now serving as our conscious and making judgments where people should just know better and exercise self control. When the machines get smart enough to rise up in some sort of Transformers-Terminator-Armageddon, don’t say I didn’t tell you so…

2 comments:

Sarah B. SMITH said...

i agree with the whole passenger thing.. but until you have lost your child to a horrible accident because of the stupid cell phone.. then you can talk

John said...

i understand the tragedy aspect, but this guy even said he COULDN'T help but answer his phone after that when he was in his car...

i would think the memory of your dead child would be reminder enough. you don't need a computer program to remind you of the apparent dangers of driving distractions.