| | |  Technology News | July 2009 
How Did I Get Here?
 Alan Burkhart - PVNN
| | Pardon me for saying so, but given that she was walking around in one of the world’s largest and busiest cities, shouldn’t she have been paying attention to her environment? | |
How did I get here? That has to be the question Staten Island teen Alexa Longueira was asking when she suddenly found herself down a New York City manhole.
According to MyFox New York:
Alexa Longueira was walking down Victory Boulevard and getting ready to text-message when she fell into an open sewer manhole. Now the city is trying to figure out why the manhole was left open and unblocked. Alexa suffered some cuts and scrapes but is otherwise OK.
So just how did Alexa end up in a manhole?
Seems the young lady was too busy texting to pay attention to where she was going. Pardon me for saying so, but given that she was walking around in one of the world’s largest and busiest cities, shouldn’t she have been paying attention to her environment? Perhaps I’m being unreasonable.
It’s a given that the manhole shouldn’t have been uncovered. The city workers involved say they’d left it open only for a moment to grab some cones. They probably assumed that people walking down the street would be paying attention. Perhaps they were being unreasonable, too.
Here’s an interesting thought: Had Alexa sauntered down the street a few seconds later, there is every chance she’d have tripped over the cones and gone head first into the manhole. She might have died, and this story would have lost all of its entertainment value. Do you doubt me? Think about it – she was obviously paying zero attention to the path ahead of her. If she didn’t see that gaping hole, why would she see a rubber cone?
And of course, Alexa’s parents say they plan to file a lawsuit. If they cared one whit about their daughter, they’d apologize to the city and thoroughly discipline poor Alexa for being so careless with her own safety.
Every day I see people texting while they’re driving. It’s insane. Many areas have enacted laws against texting while driving, which is a good indicator of just how serious the problem has become. Mind you, I love my little Motorola cell phone. And yes, I send the occasional text message. But if I’m walking, I stop. And I never... NEVER text while driving. You should be very relieved about that since I drive an 18-wheeler for a living. Remember: I’m out there. Somewhere. Always.
And please explain to me how you can be watching where you’re going while concentrating on making a smiley face on a 3-inch screen? Answer: You can’t. And that’s why sooner or later you’ll crash into the back of my trailer at 70 mph. Perhaps your family will have “LOL! :-)” etched on your gravestone.
Come on people, grow up just a little bit, okay? I’d hate to meet you by accident.
Related Reading:
Texting Teen Falls Down Open Manhole
Alan Burkhart is a cross-country trucker and occasional writer from Mississippi. You can find all of his work at: AlanBurkhart.blogspot.com. |
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