You drive, you text…you die. Just try not to kill me, too

Alex Neihaus — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:33:17 +0000

Every day for nearly 17 years I’ve commuted on the Mass PikeÂ between my homeÂ and workplaces in Cambridge, Boston, Burlington and, now, Waltham.

Drivers on the Pike have long been deserving of the appellation “Masshole” — you can’t believe what I’ve seen people doing.

They eat, they sing, they use bedpans, they trim their nails…heck, they even paint their nails, they throw things at you, they drive winter “beatahs”Â so they canÂ dare you to slam into them when they cut you off at 90MPHÂ to get onto 128.

But nothing has scared me more in the last few years than watching Betty in her Hummer SUT and Bob in his Escalade texting. They text with one hand…they text with both hands. They take cell phone photos of themselves cutting people off, then they text the pix to family members with a “woot.”Â They text while they are painting their nails.

Now, finally, there’s a YouTube video for them, that should be required viewing before being issued a Fast Lane transponder:

Thinking aloud » texting

You drive, you text…you die. Just try not to kill me, too