happy christmas!
presents are sitting underneath the tree, a cake is baking and i am doing traffic school. if this isn’t christmas i don’t know what is.
i have until january 28, 2011 to complete my online traffic school but i figure i won’t want to sit and click through slides while in new york and i definitely don’t want to spend my last few days in CA doing that either but i’d rather the latter than the former. so here i am, waiting for my cake to bake and reading up on CA traffic laws.
it’s actually pretty interesting and now i have a multitude of driving factoids to bring up in future conversations. for example, did you know that drivers under the age of 18 are not allowed to operate a wireless phone or a hands free phone…at ALL? that’s right. according to the state of CA every driver under 18 using a cell while driving can be ticketed. cuh-razy.
i hate paying tickets like anyone else but could you imagine the money we would make if we ticketed everyone? $20 bucks a pop for every initial violation and then $50 for each consequent offense. do you know how many books and computers and teaching supplies that could be? do you know how many less accidents there could be? do you know how many less obnoxious and frivolous text messages you would receive? my god, the benefits could be endless.
on another note, traffic school is rather dramatic. exhibit a:
taken directly from the Santa Clara online traffic school slide…
“Imagine California without traffic laws. Road speeds would accelerate dangerously as unskilled and reckless drivers set their own rules, dodging and weaving through traffic like a personal pinball game. Unmarked and uncontrolled intersections would become killing fields.”
This reads like a movie trailer for the love child of Ronin, Fast & Furious, and that silly Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah Taxi movie. I have to admit the inner-nerd is kind of digging the hyperbolic, knowledge ad-nauseum nature of traffic school.
on a side note, Ronin is one of my parents’ favorite action movies.
