A while back, I published this cartoon about trying to claim people you're messaging with while driving as part of your carpool.
I quickly got an email from a very upset reader in Arizona. It turned out his fiancee had been killed by a teen driver who had been texting. He did not find this cartoon funny at all.
We ended up having a nice conversation about it - but it certainly hit a nerve. Satire does that sometimes. Part of my job is to point out things that really should be too stupid to write about, but in this case it hit too close to reality. That's the line we walk on.
The New York Times has this story about how much more you're going to crash into things if you, like a moron, think that in addition to piloting thousands of pounds of metal and hundreds of pounds of humanity around at high speed, think you need something more to be doing.
Sometimes I make fun of things that I think are just too ridiculously asinine to be considered not a joke, like putting a trampoline on a hillside. I mean, I can't even really work my radio when the car is moving. This is how I discover lots of new stations.
I really wish this cartoon fell into that category of "Things that are too stupid to be true," but apparently it's not.
