The Duh Files

The NYTimes is reporting that talking on your cell phone makes you drive more slowly.

First, I will say it if no one else will: This is a good thing.

Nobody wants you to race along the 10 with a Samsung stuck to your ear, going 75 miles an hour. If you're going to do it, by all means, drop down to 60 and head over to the right lanes.

But we all know that cell phone users don't want to go slower. That is not why you answer the phone while driving 75 miles an hour. It's because you want to know who's calling you right now and you don't want to wait to find out until you're off the road.

I know, I sound smug and judgmental. That's because I am special.

I am completely incapable of driving and talking on the phone.

I can't do it. Either I go spontaneously deaf and cannot hear what is being said, or I go momentarily blind and can't see what's going on in front of me. It is this same personal failing that forces me to not talk -- at all -- when parking or unparking or navigating an airport. (I was so happy to see a recent houseguest that I drove right past the airport exit and then opted for the southbound Sepulveda Blvd., even though Santa Monica is, in fact, several miles north.)

It's not just my problem. It affects the people around me. After we got a car, I so seldom answered my cell phone that, upon moving to L.A., I gave up mine and used MG's. Now, of course, I most definitely have my own cell phone, and still it is hard to reach me. I turned off the ringer for the drive to the airport yesterday and sure enough, missed a call several hours later because I never turned it back on.

Make no mistake: This makes me a very annoying person to know/try to contact. I'm aware of this and I'm sorry about it. If I could change it, I would.

But consider, if you will, the possibility that this flaw of mine is actually an evolutionary advantage. Because I *cannot* talk on the phone and drive, I know better than to try. As a result, I get where I'm going more quickly, and mayhaps, in one piece.