Hanging Up on Phoning and Driving

The call has gone out across the land: Ban phoning and driving.

Don't let one more phoning-and-texting-at-the-same-time tow truck driver wind up in another suburban swimming pool.

Don't let one more conductor run a signal and cause a multiple-fatality train wreck while playing Tetris on his iPhone.

All this banning stuff sounds perfectly justified until you realize that motorists who are self-absorbed enough to pay more attention to an electrical device than the road are the same self-absorbed nitwits who have been making the roadways unsafe ever since Gloria Swanson first checked her peacock feathers in the rearview mirror.

These are the people who are otherwise playing with their radio tuners ... reading ... turning around to yell at their kids.

They are interested in themselves so very much and you and I so very little that if this great country were to take their cell phones out of their hands on the road they would simply go right back to swatting their kids with the sports page, reading meeting minutes, and figuring out other ways to escape the boredom of having to be concerned about the welfare of people outside their windshields, all while chatting away on their Jawbones.

Your Unhumble Car Czar is committed to the interests of responsible cell phone users on this nation's roadways ... and behind prosecution to the fullest extent of the law for any U.S. driver who is too dimwitted to realize when his or her use of technology behind the wheel is compromising the safety of the road-going public.

My office will sponsor legislation that seeks no additional legislation to prosecute this nation's self-absorbed for road-going infractions.

Quite simply, motorists who cannot drive on the roadways without endangering themselves and others will face the same local law enforcement actions they always face for speeding, weaving, failure to control, assured clear distance, failure to yield, and driving into residential swimming pools.

Some motorists clearly can talk on the phone and drive a car safely, just as some BMW drivers can drive without idiotically cutting in and out of traffic and some pick-up truck drivers can drive without idiotically tailgating little Eurosnob weasels driving BMWs. (See this blog on September 31 if you would like to learn about smart cutting-in-and-out of traffic and smart tailgating).

We should no sooner ban phoning and driving than we should ban little German I'mbetterthanyoumobiles or big F-350 Super DuyouwonderwhatIhaveinmypantsters.

Being a self-appointed government official who didn't study very hard in school -- and who has only a shaky idea of the process of introducing bills and making them laws based entirely on partial recollection of a Sesame Street song -- I will be posting details of this legislation on Craigslist. I will trade a new-in-box George Foreman Grill to any party with the authority and wherewithal to draft this bill and see it through Congress (likely a congressman or a member of The House of Lords).

If you would like input on this bill, please use the comment links below. I will be checking them frequently on my monotonous morning commutes.

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Night of a Thousand Papa John’s Pizza Camaros

Personal Factoid: Papa John's Pizza has been banned from your Unhumble Car Czar's humble undisclosed location because of rude, pushy, door-to-door solicitors who purport to rep coupon books for The Papa. The kind who interrupt dinner and stand at your doorstep brazenly running the "Yes" routine misappropriated from some Dale Carnegie course.

Do you like pizza?

Do you like saving money on pizza?

Do you feel like a moron yet for not slamming the door in my face earlier?

But give Papa props for his summer campaign to locate and repurchase his long-lost 1971-1/2 Camaro Z/28, sold to float his fledgling restaurant interests in 1983 and repackaged in 2009 as the heart and soul of the nation's third largest pizza chain.

A replica of this gold-with-black-stripes Z/28 has been making its rounds on Papa John's commercials, looking like nothing more than an eccentric affectation of a pizza baron who actually holds a driver's license. Kind of like those weird local car dealer and rug store commercials that never went through an agency ... on a national scale.

But now that the back story is out (a quarter mil finder's fee fueled by pure chest-thumping American muscle car passion) and The Papa is giving out free pizzas to everyone who rolls up to a Papa John's store in a Camaro tonight, I your Unhumble Car Czar, by the powers vested in me by myself as President Obama's self-appointed national Car Czar, hereby declare John H. Schnatter, Louisville, Kentucky, a.k.a. "Papa John," The Order of the Stand-up Car Guy.

That's unless this whole promotion turns out to be some sly cross-marketing deal with GM to tie-in with its newest and much-hyped punchy pony, in which case The Order shall return to its previous co-holders, Jon Bon Jovi and Sean Penn.

Way to go, Papa.

Muscle Car Nation owes you a few smoky-burnout salutes tonight.

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The Peace for Pompous Doofs Program: Turn-in Thoughtless Horn-honkers, Win Fabulous Prizes

Wasn't it cool back in the 80s to walk away from your ride and beep your car alarm, telling the world that your car, its contents, and you were hot stuff?

Not to be messed with. Probably packin'.

Since then, we've elected four U.S. presidents, Madonna has slept with several generations of NBA teams, and Bowling for Soup has performed the quintessential musical mockery of that decade.

Since then, every plain vanilla sedan and minivan on the street has gotten a its very own beep beep security system standard at the factory.

Did you know that if you have a beep beep security system in your car in 2009, and you surely do, that beep-beeping it just isn't cool anymore?

It's not cool because since the 80s it has been possible to both ignore Madonna and lock your car and arm its security system by simply pressing the interior door lock button ... no beep beep required.

Most citizens are aware of this, and while it is entirely forgivable to beep-lock one's vehicle in those hands-full-from-unloading-and-still-gotta-corral-the-rugrats times, it is unforgivable, clueless, and oafish (and bad ... very bad) to beep-lock one's vehicle all the time -- like late at night, every night in a residential area.

The government’s new Peace for Pompous Doofs Program (PPDP) will beginning September 1 allow U.S. citizens to turn-in annoying horn-chirping neighbors to the government to be crushed and recycled in exchange for sleeptime peace.

Got a neighbor who insists on hopping out of his car and clicking his honking keyfob as he strolls up to to his doorstep like some IZOD-clad dork straight out of Pretty in Pink?

Turn 'em in.

While you're enjoying uninterrupted peace some quiet summer's evening, periodically imagine the soft, crackling "squish" sound the fine fellow made as some humorless government PPDP contractor clicked his very own fob button.

Pending funding for the Peace for Pompous Doofs Program (which is in the stimulus package or health care package, I forget which, somewhere between the paragraph that lets the government kill your grandmother and the paragraph that lets the government feed your grandmother's corpse to Muslim terrorist detainees as a pork substitute) neighbors can begin turning in unneighborly neighbors on midnight, September 1 with no complicated paperwork required.

It's fun and easy, but not that easy.

Please do not, for instance, use the anonymous comment links on this blog to rat-out the names and addresses of violators, as any names and addresses appearing in the comment area of this blog shall be considered fictional and prankish in nature and not subject to libel or any other laws in the State of Massachusetts or its surrounding 49 states, District of Columbia, and any and all U.S. territories.

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