FACEBOOKING ON THE RUN. Pts. 1-2

As a substitute teacher in the public school system for 15 years I would often admonish my students to avoid playing with their e-devices while they drove. I can only hope I got through to a few of them, and perhaps a few of these precious souls are alive today because my words resounded with their conscience. No doubt, I encouraged them that if they didn’t do it for themselves, they ought to do it for their loved ones; (not to mention other young people in the car with them, and the drivers and the occupants of the vehicles surrounding them).

One has only to do a search on the internet to see the results of the murder and mayhem which, because of the march of technology, has only become possible in the past couple of decades. I have often read about this or that teen or as many as five teens in a vehicle having succumbed to a texting ‘accident.’ And of course, so like a DWI scenario, additional drivers and their passengers have been put at risk, and have been taken from us, as a result.

There is an advertisement running on television and the internet at this time which depicts a young driver punching out letters on her cell phone. Suddenly, having run a red light, her vehicle is rudely slammed into, and we are given an inside view of the carnage being visited on the unsuspecting adolescents.

Following are true life accounts of actual accidents which stole away the lives and potential of some precious people.

Officials believe a woman who died in a car accident late last week had been posting to Facebook seconds before the fatal crash.

Investigators puzzling over the cause of the crash ruled out drugs and alcohol before learning the woman, 32-year-old Courtney Ann Sanford, of Clemmons, N.C., had been taking selfies and updating her Facebook profile immediately before the accident.

Just prior to the wreck Thursday morning, Sanford updated her status. “The happy song makes me HAPPY,” she wrote, likely a reference to the hit song of the same name.

“The Facebook text happened at 8:33 a.m. We got the call on the wreck at 8:34 a.m.,” Lt. Chris Weisner of the High Point Police Department told WGHP. “In a matter of seconds, a life was over just so she could notify some friends that she was happy.”

The police department’s Lt. Charles Lanier added to The High Point Enterprise that “she was also taking pictures of herself while driving.”

It is ironic that a song which made Courtney happy was, ultimately, responsible for this dear girl’s demise.

Pt. 2

In another situation, a young Oklahoma driver who was distracted by  texting, ran into the rear end of a stopped car, and at a high rate of speed. While the young man lived, fifty year old Linda Erie, and her grandchildren, 9 year old Brooklynn Newville and 5 year old Jace Newville were pronounced dead at the scene.

I have seen a video of the aftermath of that accident. Ms. Erie’s vehicle was totaled, and left almost unrecognizable. (One can only imagine what this crash did to vulnerable human flesh).

As you may suspect, given my allusions, and previous examples, I spend a bit too much time with the internet and social media; but only in the confines of a stationary environment. I provide the foregoing disclaimer prior to a final example of a life, while spared, was irrevocably changed by a selfish, irresponsible soul who was later determined to be texting while driving a two ton vehicle at a high rate of speed, and down an interstate highway.

We see four teens, three girls and a boy, seated in a large room. Having been prompted by an interviewer, they begin chatting aimlessly about the enjoyment which they have experienced texting and playing with social media while driving.

Suddenly, another teen enters the room. The young lady shuffles along dragging one foot behind her. She sits down and introduces herself as the victim of someone else’s neglect and irresponsible choice to text and drive. Her speech is slightly slurred, though she wears a smile as big as all outdoors.

And, without fail, each of her listeners, so glib and ‘gay’ prior to ‘Tina’s’ entrance, experience a surge of emotion, and sniffle, and wipe away the tears which unexpectedly course down their cheeks.

And without being prompted, the young people begin to apologize for their former behavior, and promise their newfound friend that they will never again power up their phones, and tablets and laptops, while sitting behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Analogous to lighting up one cigarette after another, all the information in the world that the use of e-devices in the driver’s seat multiplies one’s potential for a fatal accident, and yet the lingering notion that, “It will never happen to me.”

And perhaps some of those precious young, and not so young people who grace our cemeteries once said this very thing.

As scripture says,

“There things ought not to be.”

by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary, Vol. 57. Copyright Pending.

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