What are you in for? 'Texting': Common sense shouldn't take a law, but this time it does

I was driving down the road one day in Iowa, minding my own business, when a cop car pulled up beside me.

What was he doing? I was going my usual 12 miles an hour in a 55 zone. I not only had my seat belt on, I'd made it into a fashionable pair of suspenders just so I wouldn't forget it. I was golden.

And then my phone buzzes.

"Just a second," I says to Angelina Jolie. "Gotta put you on hold. Text coming in."

I glance at the screen. "Pull over," it says.

"Sorry, you're not my type, fella," I respond.

"Pull over now!" it says.

Fine. I know the drill. Both hands on the wheel, big fake smile, wait for the deputy to hike up his pants and waddle up to the window. "Do you know why I stopped you?" he demands.

"Um, no, do YOU know why you stopped me?"

"You are under arrest for texting and driving in Iowa, you filthy hippy scofflaw. We have rules here."

"But wait - YOU were texting me..."

"No excuses! If you'd robbed a bank or crashed a Piper Cub into the IRS building, I could let you go with a warning. But texting? That's downright unAmerican."

Hey look! This is a really nice jail. And my new roommate is sooo friendly. Almost too friendly. Hmmm.

I introduce myself to the guys in the day cell. "You say your name is Dagger Skull? How charming. Care for a Tic Tac? What are you in for? Conspiracy to disembowel, huh? The whole Vikings team, you say... Very impressive.

"Me? Oh, I was just texting in Iowa."

The 300-pound tattoo-covered criminal rolls up into the fetal position in a corner.

"Stay away from me, man. You're loco... I don't want no touble."

And so it is that texting driving becomes illegal in Iowa. And chances are I won't be going to the Big House over it, since my kids have not yet taught me how to use the text function on the cell phone.

Unlike the seatbelt law some years ago, this regulation passed with nary a whimper from the public, and rightly so.

Everybody knows it's foolish and dangerous to text while driving, including the dillweeds who do it every day. Who among us hasn't sweated while the dude in the next lane weaves around with his head down, typing in his autobiography or whatever in his lap. (At least we HOPE that's what he was doing down there.) To be serious for a moment, we've seen at least one local young person cause a tragic accident because of it. Please, let's not have another.

Of course, it's odd that you have to legislate common sense into people. Don't type love notes to your girlfriend while using the off-ramp, Sparky. What next? A don't watch Dr. Phil on the iPod while driving law? A don't trim your toenails while driving law?

Nobody likes layers and layers of regulation on how we lead our personal lives, and yet, we act so boneheaded that eventually, somebody has to think for us.

Really, what text message could be soooo valuable that it can't wait until we get where we're going or come to a safe place to pull off the road for a minute?

Obama calling me for the nuclear codes? The boss calling me to ask why I'm seven hours late for the 8 a.m. staff meeting?

Let's be real. Ninety percent of the texts those driving texters are sending out are this kind of vital, earth-shattering info:

"What u doin? LOL. Nothing. LOL. What u doin? LOL. Not much. Kewl. Gr8. LOL."

Or the ever-popular...

"So, what u wearing?"

Point is, nothing that can't wait. Forever.

I guess that technically under the bill, you would still be allowed to use your cell phone, and even read a text, while driving. And frankly, I'm not too sure how they are going to enforce this. I guess the police will have to be on the lookout for the one-handed driving technique known to angry driver's ed teachers everywhere as "The Def Leppard."

You could even play your "Critter Crunch" on your Blackberry and get away with it under a weak-kneed Iowa bill.

Research shows drivers who text are 20 times more likely to get in an accident.

They take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 of every 6 seconds while texting. (At 55 mph, a driver would travel the length of a football field, including the end zones, without peeking at the road.) Rep. Chris Rants, Sioux City, argued that the bill infringes on adult personal rights. "I think the activities I engage in while I'm driving down the road can be determined by me," said Rants. "I'm the adult. I don't need a paternalistic state telling me what I can and cannot do..."

There's a reason the guy's campaign for governor

"We are giving them another gun or another knife in the car to inflict bodily harm on themselves," Rep. Mike May, Spirit Lake, countered, speaking about the dangers of texting with young drivers.

Storm Lake Public Safety Director Mark Prosser points out that cell phones aren't the only distraction. Carmakers who put out GPS systems that are programmed while driving, DVD players, mileage computers and all the rest take our eyes off the road.

After a year of warnings, we'll start getting tickets for texting driving and be all ticked off over it. Think of it as a stupidity tax.

I'd rather see you lose 30 dollars than lose your life, or cost someone else's.

We shouldn't have had to pass this law, but we did. And for at least once, the Iowa Legislature did the right thing.