accelerated catalysts

Every few days, here in San Jose, 280 becomes a parking lot. The reason is because of a small accident. Clearly rubber necking is the primary cause of the build up, but the initiating event is the small accident that occurs. I have no proof behind this assertion, but I'm absolutely certain that the accident frequency is increasing due to cell phone utilization while driving.

I see a lot of tickets and legislation being used to solve this problem. Some people want to try to create tools and rules that keep phones from working while in the car. This simply will not work. The pull of the phone and the social components of text, talk, and tools is too great. It's worse than a drug. So, we must look to a different way to solve the problem. The solution is obvious. Self driving cars. When cars drive themselves, we can indulge in technology the entire route with far greater safety. Any other solution is a minor reduction and will not solve the underlying problem.

Norm Macdonald has a very funny skit about designated drivers and how useless this campaign is to solve the problems of drinking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TsqAuaI6Wo This is very similar to the futility of fighting the problems that technology creates.

So, rather than pouring our energy into slowing, modifying or blocking technology, we need to look at the problem as a catalyst for positive change. We should accelerate the problem so that we can get to our solutions with higher priority and greater speed.