South Dakota City bans Texting, and Eating, While Driving

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I get it, as a truck driver.  There are a lot of idiots on the road, and most of the reasons they act idiotic is because they are driving distracted.  So along comes someone that says, "There ought-a be a law."  But when is the law more than a protective piece of legislation, and crosses the line between freedom and governmental control?  It began with banning cellphone usage without a hands-free device, then it hopped to texting, and now a city in South Dakota is banning eating while driving. What's next? Is some city going to get the bright idea to ban conversing with your passenger, next?

My good friend Rich Gonsalves died a couple weeks ago while texting and driving. I get it, distracted driving is a very dangerous activity.  Fine, ban texting while driving at the local level. But where does it stop?  Laws meant to protect us from insane activities, and laws that compromise our freedoms, are divided by a very fine line, and that line has been crossed.

The city of Huron, in South Dakota, has passed an ordinance to ban texting while driving.  Fine. Texting can be more dangerous than even driving drunk, because the driver actually takes their eyes, and all of their attention, for that matter, off the road.  But mixed into that ordinance is a blanket ban on distracted driving that includes eating, and reading, while driving.

Okay, reading while driving is downright stupid.  Hell, I could never figure out why, and how, women put on makeup while driving. One bump in the road while applying eye liner, and boom, out goes the eyeball.  But in the interest of protecting us from ourselves, which is never a good idea for government to venture too far into, Huron even disallows eating while driving with this new city ordinance.  Hell, if that happened here in California (and it may very well, pretty soon, considering the liberal madness that infests this State), I'd never get to eat lunch - as a Sand and Gravel driver we don't get lunch, we have to eat as we work.  I've gotten so good at it I can eat a bowl of soup while driving.  Drink the broth first, then roll out of the bowl the chunks one at a time.

The ordinance also bars drivers with learners' permits from talking on a phone while driving.  I guess hands-free phone talking is allowed for the rest of the drivers, though. I wonder how long before they decide to take that away, too?

In fact, when it comes to those that want to protect us from ourselves, how long before they decide driving itself is too dangerous for us, and they outlaw cars altogether?  After all, isn't auto accidents among the biggest killers?

Right now the punishment is a fine.  Later it'll be riding in a car as a passenger with someone eating while they drive, listening to an Obama speech (talk about distracted driving), just to scare you into never doing it again. . . well, perhaps that would be cruel and unusual.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Huron Enacting Ban on Texting while Driving - KELOLAND