Tuesday, 14 August 2012

Rob Ford: Not happy just killing social programs


                I haven’t done a Rob Ford love-fest post in a while and figured hey he’s done something boneheaded again, let’s blog about! This just blew up on my Twitter through news agencies, where Ford obviously has no concept of, “just stop talking.”

                Photos on Twitter surfaced of big bad Ford driving his Escalade, deeply engrossed in the document that he was reading while on the Gardiner Expressway. Of course the media went after him for this having already been in trouble for driving past a streetcar when its doors were open as well as flipping off a woman and her son who gestured at Ford to hang up his cell phone will driving downtown. What was his response?

                “I was probably reading.” Thank you, Captain Obvious for that statement. That’s not the worst part, it gets better. Ford then goes on to say that “it didn’t affect his driving.” What? Flying down the highway paying the upmost attention to just your driving while simultaneously looking through and reading a document doesn’t affect your driving? I call bull. I’ve read documents; most people can’t even stand on the TTC and read through documents without diverting a large portion of attention. So is he spending that little effort actually reading through important city documents or that little attention to driving and not potentially killing someone?

                Hold on to your pants, because it gets EVEN better. Ford then goes on to tell the media that he’s a busy guy and uses his morning commute to catch up on work and said that “he still kept his eyes on the road.”
You're right Rob, your eyes are
totally on the road...

            Welcome to the real world, Mr. Ford. We’re in Toronto, everyone is busy, everyone has a million and one things to do and everyone has a deadline to get them done by; do not confuse that with giving people a cause for putting others lives at risk for the completion of tasks. Growing up in northern Ontario, I’ve made the trek on the highway from Timmins to Toronto many times, and now living here, I’ve driven the highways around here. There is nothing more terrifying than driving by someone engrossed in reading a book or the paper while driving 100 km/h +. You are not Superman, you cannot react that quickly. This apathetic view on thinking there is nothing wrong with commuting on the highway reading “because your busy schedule,” is crap. You are needlessly putting the lives of people at risk on the roads because you’re too damn lazy to care about other people. There have been COUNTLESS studies down supporting that distracted driving causes preventable injury and deaths with motor-vehicle accidents. If people can’t carry on a simple conversation and not be distracted then how is someone supposed to read a document and still keep his eyes on the road and have it not affect his driving?

                The answer is simply, they can’t.

                Rob Ford, cut the apathetic attitude and directly protect the people of this city and many other cities. Take responsibility for your actions and realize that you can kill someone. YOU. Nobody else in that vehicle. You.

UPDATE:
For a full account of the conversation please see the CBC News story:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/08/14/rob-ford-chicago321.html 

Story taken from the Canadian Press as published by the Vancouver Sun

Photo taken from @CTVToronto

1 comment:

  1. Rob Ford is such a bonehead... lol

    ReplyDelete