Hazardous to your health: texting while walking

First of all, my apology to all for being so scarce from hanging out here on the Corner. 

This past week was a dozy of a train wreck that culminated last Friday, with my main administrative assistant being notified that this week would be her last week. This is actually a positive move and while I hate to see anyone lose their job, this individual has not been a team player, a detriment to the program I am responsible for. I knew this was coming but not until mid July and this triggered a mad, chaotic scramble to find another staff member I could use for the program I administer until the end of this fiscal year or the end of this month. So now I have to do baptism under fire for this new person plus counting on my other assistant who has just a month in our program and knows just enough to be really, really dangerous. End result for me is working all weekend and the rest of the month just went to hell.

Posts by yours truly may be very scarce between now and the end of the month. Just have to see how this all shakes out.

So, before I can do any sort of other post, serious or not, a rant is in order. What or who to go off on? 

A mom, a baby stroller, heavy traffic, headphones and a cell phone were all that was required to spark this prime example of stupidity and a rant.

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Hazardous to your health: Texting while walking

By PatriotUSA

Just for the record, I hate cell phones, loathe computers, social media sites, the way society is becoming so impersonal, the loss of interpersonal communication skills in our young folk  (breaking up via text messaging for example), and the lack of common sense in so many people. Just the tip of the iceberg here but the rest can wait for another time. I admit that I suffer from perma-grump, am skeptical about humanity overall and my trust is hard to earn. If you earn my friendship and do not burn me, you have earned my friendship for life, usually.

Coming home from work last Friday, I was about 1/4 of a mile from one of, if not the busiest and most dangerous intersection in the town where I live. It is a major intersection with four way lights and left turn lanes and lights. This intersection is on one of the deadliest highways in this part of Oregon, the Northwest, in the best of weather.

I am an extremely defensive driver. I do not take chances, leave a lot of room and have driven, braked, accelerated and maneuvered my way out of countless would be accidents, many times from some idiot talking or using their cellphone or other electronic device(s) and other nasty situations. As I crossed the railroad tracks, approaching this intersection, I noticed a lady pushing a double stroller with headphones on and looking down at her cellphone. Umm, this did not look good and as I slowed down it was very clear she was madly texting away, oblivious to everything going on around her including what was even going on in her stroller. As the light changed to green for me I braked and slowed to a crawl, waiting to see if this moron would even look up and notice she did NOT have the crosswalk sign or light in her favor or direction. Nope, not even a glance up or a change in her pace. She pushed the stroller right into the crosswalk which is bumpy on purpose, to get your attention that you are in a crosswalk and need to pay attention. My car was at the edge of the crosswalk and as she crossed in front of my Buick, I laid on the horn and scared her so badly that her phone flew out of her hand (I did her a huge favor far as I am concerned!), landed on the sidewalk behind her and the screen portion broke off. She might have wet herself for all I know and I did not feel sorry for her at all. I had my window down and asked her if she was AWARE that she had entered the crosswalk, against the light and had never even bothered to look up or check her surroundings while pushing a stroller with twins? It gets better and this gal may have the market cornered for stupidity and lack of common sense.

Instead of admitting she had been in another world texting on her phone, tuning out with headphones on while walking along one of the busiest highways in central Oregon, she started yelling at me for almost 'hitting her and her precious babies.' These are the type of people who should NOT be allowed to have children, drive a car, walk, chew gun at the same time or maybe not have a cellphone. Keep in mind that she walked AWAY from her stroller and 'precious babies' to yell at me, leaving the stroller alone in the crosswalk. She was maybe in her early 40's and looked pretty normal to me, whatever qualifies for normal these days.

Next, she started beating on the hood of my car, continued screaming at me and flipped off the guy in a truck behind me. This entire time I had the green light and she was blocking the flow of traffic.

Turns out the guy behind me was an off duty sheriff. He got out of his truck and pushed the stroller back to the sidewalk, motioned me to pull into the Walgreen's parking lot, then handcuffed the text addict and dragged her sorry ass into Walgreen's, and cuffed her to a chair. He came back got his pickup and then gave text momma a ticket for blocking traffic AND endangering her twins. That gets reported to the state Children Services Department, oops!

The sheriff asked me a few questions and I also shared with him what I had observed prior to this lady losing her cool. He also gave her a field sobriety test after he smelled booze on her breath. Her husband was called to come get the twins and he had to leave work. 

The next day there was an article in our local fish wrapper on 'Pedtextrian' visits to the emergency room being on the increase. After what I have witnessed with this moron mom, other people who are challenged and have no business owning a cellphone, let alone using one , yes I can easily see 'Pedtextrian' accidents becoming a major problem. Read this article and see how stupid the majority of these addicts are. The lady from Baltimore actually fell, needed stitches and got a nice black eye for all her trouble. These fools should be part of the obama administration.

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Nicole King, of Baltimore, suffered a black eye and a bad cut when she tripped

From the Bend Bulletin:

  

‘Pedtextrian’ visits to the ER mount

By Jill Rosen/Baltimore Sun

 

BALTIMORE — The night started out right — good friends, carousing, the lead-up to an out-of-town wedding.

But between festivities, after Nicole King popped into her hotel room to change clothes and was heading back out, she wanted to text her pals to find out where to meet them. Hurrying along in the dark, punching letters into her phone, she tripped over a heavy decorative bench.

“My face hit the bench on the way down,” the University of Maryland Baltimore County professor says. “It was bad.”

It was six stitches from nose to lip bad. Big, ugly black eye bad. And yet — somehow — not quite bad enough for King to stop walking and texting.

“The moral of the story is don’t text while walking,” she says. “But I still do it all over Baltimore.”

Just as people are doing it and doing it and doing it nationwide — to the point that they’ve earned a derogatory name: pedtextrians. The Urban Dictionary defines the noun as: “Someone who’s texting while walking, and is completely oblivious to what’s going on around them. These people have a tendency to walk into things like parking meters, light poles and fall down stairs.”

Read the rest here.

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