Bob CollinsOn the way in to the World Headquarters of NewsCut today, I sat behind a car at a light in Woodbury that was green. The woman — and not a kid — was busy texting. After I tooted the horn, I waited awhile longer.
She took the time to finish her text or close her browser, then fumbled around for a while to put her phone away. Then, she drove off, shaking her head at me in the rear view mirror.
We were outside the Woodbury police station.
The odds are she’s heard a hundred times that you shouldn’t text and drive (texting at a stop light is also illegal, by the way), and yet she did anyway.
And so too, in all likelihood, did this person who was heading straight for a Hudson, Wis., police car last Thursday, according to the department’s Facebook page.
“This accident could have been much, much worse,” the police said. Both the officer and the texter survived.
A few weeks ago, for the record, I was on my way to pick up my son for a Timberwolves game. I was a couple of blocks away from his apartment when I pulled out the phone to call him to let him know I was around the corner on McKnight. I scrolled to his number and just as I found it, I happened to look up. I was heading straight for a jogger. I was literally a second away from killing a person.
I haven’t pulled out the phone since.
Put the phone away, people.
