Faster than a Speeding Bullet

As our unemployment rate soars to 9.8% nationally – 263 thousand fewer jobs in September – there is a clear vector to creating new job openings that the government seems to be fighting tooth and nail! It seems our leaders are concerned that texting, speaking on cell phones and – perish the thought – entering data on a computer, all while driving, should be banned. OK, these activities only kill about 6 thousand people a year (and some of those might not actually have jobs that will need to be replaced) – so that won’t improve the jobless rate very much, but it’s a start. What, you say, why don’t we just let lawyers continue these activities so that we can get of that plague?

At the Federal level, the President has signed an executive order stopping federal employees in federal vehicles (or on federally-issued phones in private vehicles) from texting. Bummer, federal employees! Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood (you never hear from these secondary cabinet appointments, do you), following a conference on “distracted driving,” suggested that the feds use the “big stick” of cutting off federal funds to states that don’t curtail texting by law – a practice that worked well when the feds wanted to push states to raising the minimum drinking age to 21 across the land.

So like, who really opposes such laws? Couldn’t really have a serious lobby on this issue, right? Well guess again. The trucking industry is up in arms about the thought that truckers can’t communicate with their dispatchers through laptops and built-ins while they are driving those multi-ton loads of crushing destruction on less sleep than an insomniac in a construction zone. Gotta sympathsize with them. They have a good point… efficiencies in maximizing deliveries, communicating delays, and managing shipments do appear to be more important than a few lousy lives, whose death may help ease our unemployment burden.

And truckers aren’t alone. The distracted driving conference had lots of folks who are under increasing pressure to deliver more (particularly since so many of their peers have been laid off, pushing an increased workload on those remaining) in decreasing spans of time. The October 1^st New York Times: “Real estate brokers, pharmaceutical sales people, entrepreneurs, marketers and others say they have little choice but to transform their cars into cubicles. In this merciless economy, they say, they have to make every minute count, and respond instantly to opportunities and challenges… And they argue that the convenience of constant contact — and the chance to tick off items from an endless to-do list while driving — far outweigh what they think are slim chances that it could lead to a wreck… Truckers, plumbers, delivery drivers and others are tethered to dispatchers with an array of productivity devices, including on-board computers that send instructions about the next job and keep tabs on drivers’ locations. Such devices can require continual attention — distracting drivers who are steering the biggest vehicles on American roads.”

Look at the opportunities and jobs that such activities promote within this fading economy: insurance claims adjustment, collision repair shops, medical and legal opportunities, disability claims management, human resources and employment agencies, morticians, accident investigation, police work… and I am sure you can think of a few more. Do we really want to deprive the people in these budding fields of the obvious growth opportunities? Hey, since we have already placed $5 million as the value of a human life (the maximum in lifetime benefits under most health insurance policies) and there are lots of unemployed statisticians, why don’t just let those statisticians run some “efficiency” and “cost benefit analysis” numbers and tell us if perhaps “society” is generating more economic value from allowing such “mobile data-inputting” than in banning it! Death = growth opportunities. Wow, I’m just a font of new job-creation ideas! Pull over! Please!

I’m Peter Dekom, and is inputting a destination on your navigation system texting?