Stupid News Network Update – Reason # 4,817,484,923 to NOT Text & Drive

We're sounding the "Irony Alert" siren loudly on this SNN Update.  A Texas man was badly injured in a car accident after his Ford F-150 drove off a bridge while he was texting.  It's what he was in the process of texting that has the Irony Alert sirens wailing.  

Every afternoon I sign off my show with the same statement:  "As you're out and about tonight having a good time, I will be as well, so please don't drink & drive... don't text and drive.  The life you save by being responsible could be me... and that's pretty important to me."  There's a reason for saying that, and it has more to do with texting and driving than it does drinking and driving.  Everybody knows, thanks to decades of PSAs, that drinking and driving is deadly.  Not as much attention is focused on discouraging texting and driving.  Not only is it as dangerous as drinking and driving, but it's done most often by the people that are the biggest dangers on the road (no, not elderly drivers)... young drivers.

I'm fairly certain that Ganado, TX is not in the US 105 listening area.  If it was, I'd be able to spot one individual that took my advice one text too late.  21-year old Chance Bothe was driving his F-150 and texting on his phone when he was hit by a moment of clarity right before careening off a bridge, sustaining injuries that would take the better part of six months to rehabilitate.  His skull was fractured, and his brain injuries will likely prevent the young man from attending college or living a normal, full life.

Mr. Bothe might not even be with us today had his friends not pulled him from his truck right before it burst into flames.  Up to this point it sounds like an unfortunate accident, and this story seems to be about friends becoming heroes and an accident victim recovering from injuries that required him to be brought back to life three different times in the ER.  The cause of the accident is where our story veers off course.  You see, Chance was texting and driving.

It's done millions of times every minute of every day in these here United States.  Driving is no longer simply a method of travel from Point A to Point B.  Your car has become a mobile office, with phone calls, texts & emails flying about as fast as if you were in the office.  Chance, however, saw the error in his ways, and decided to put the phone down and drive.  Unfortunately, instead of just putting the phone down and waiting, he had to send out that ONE LAST TEXT, just to let friends know he was ending the text conversation.  The last text he sent out"  "I need to quit texting, because I could die in a car accident".

Irony is defined in the dictionary as: inconsistency between an actual and an expected result of a sequence of events b : a result marked by this inconsistency

That certainly fits here, wouldn't you say?  Next time you're tempted to text & drive just remember poor Chance Bothe and his timeless text.  You never know what text could be your last.