You read a lot of crap on the internet news feeds. Every now an then, something comes along that takes the biscuit – on the surface, at least.
A car dealership is encouraging drivers to paint their thumbnails green to remind them not to text while driving. They got the idea from an American who “invented the technique”. To be fair to the dealership, though, the idea is to get to people to do it and then post photos on to a Facebook page. The dealership will donate £100 to various charities for the first few people who do.
To be brutally honest, the only beneficiaries will be those charities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is hardly going to change the way people behave.
The kinds of people who text while driving are simply too stupid to have a driver’s licence in the first place. They text because they want to, and they know they shouldn’t be doing it. If I see someone fiddling with their phone at traffic lights when I’m on a lesson I eyeball them – and when they see me, their immediate reaction is an absolute guarantee that they KNOW they are doing wrong.
The world has become a very strange place compared to what it was when I was a kid. Nowadays, people are actually dumb enough to believe stunts like this have intrinsic value.