Chuck Killian
4521 Horton Street
Monrovia, CA 91016
7/1/08
CC: Johnny Goatlegs
Dear California Legislature:
Today a law goes into effect which prohibits the use of cellular telephones while driving a vehicle on any California roadway, the exception being hands-free devices and speaker phones.
Well, I'm mad as hell about this. And so are alot of other people I know that are missing an arm.
This attempt at cutting "risk" associated with "statistical evidence" suggesting that phone usage while driving causes dangerous inattention by taking both a driver's hand, and thoughts from the road is just another batch of hogwash mixed up by some number-crunching-pervert that gets his rocks off by using the six-sigma system. It stinks! And, it's a tyrannical encroachment on the rights of all natural persons -- in addition to but none the less important -- a collossal insult to all people with only one arm. In reality, it's just an attempt by the Car Insurance Lobby to justify the group that backs it's existence.
In 1972 I was involved in an accident involving a wood-chipper and the remnants of an American Elm tree infected with Dutch Elm Disease. The accident took my right arm, and drastically changed my life. After the accident, I had to relearn how to write and some other things that my wife would surely tell you about after she's had a few margaritas, but, alas, what that was is not important today, though she might say otherwise. The point is, I never stopped driving a car... and I did it with one arm. Yes, that's right -- I drive, much like someone who is speaking on a phone, with one arm. Do you see where I'm going with this?
This new law is terribly offensive to me, and the thousands of others who were either born without an arm, or who suffered an accident which took one. So, I ask you California legislature... should I give up driving? Am I a liability on the road? Should I wear a muzzle while I am on the road so I won't speak and therefore have my attention diverted from the oh-so difficult task of driving? What if I, let's just be imaginative for a moment here, decide to pretend I still have an arm and with my brain imagine that the arm taken from me in that accident many years ago was still there. And what if I also pretend that I am holding a phone with that non-existent arm? Am I a risk to those around me? Maybe we can set something up while I'm driving and imagining I have two arms? I could wear a Electroencephalogram! Do you see the blatant hatred that this law is disseminating among people who share my condition?
I've grown used to my condition, in fact I've thrived. My wife will tell you that I've learned all my old tricks with my remaining arm and hand... and I digress. I've adjusted so well that ten years ago I decided to become a counselor to those who have suffered similar accidents. Recently in a support group I run for arm amputees, we discussed this new law you, the California Legislature have passed in the name of the Car Insurance Lobby! One of the group members is having trouble with his health insurance company over payment for a prosthetic arm. They are denying to pay for this fine family man's prosthetic arm! Now, this really tugs at my heart-strings -- and I'm not a sensitive man. He says his daughter is afraid of him now. As we discussed this new law in group just a few days ago, we'll call him John, he was brought to tears at the mention of a "hands-free" device. Keep in mind this topic was discussed just after he told us he couldn't afford a new arm, which obviously had a -- yes -- hand attached to it. The irony was worthy of Henrik Ibsen at his finest.
So, California Legislature, I ask you, in the name of Rights for all men, those with all of their natural appendages and those not so blessed, to reconsider this tyrannical new "Law," or, at least to define exactly what it is that makes it so dangerous to drive with only one hand. I'd like to see a study based in scientific fact -- something neurological -- which tells me, and all those I represent not just in California, but in the entire world, just what it is that makes us so dangerous!
I, for one, know that I am as good as any other man or woman on the road, and I refuse to take this attack on my personage without a fight. In today's world most systematic prejudices e.g., racism, women's rights, and gay rights have been terminated -- at least on paper with regards to law, I find it morally reprehensible that the type discrimination which has mired the aformentioned groups through time is allowed to be carried out on people like me in the name of law.
Though our cellular phone technology has advanced to a level that thirty years ago would have seemed like science-fiction, we are still living in the dark ages in terms of our respect for fellow man. Systematic "lawful" hatred must end! NOW!
I anxiously await your response.
Sincerely,
Chuck Killian.
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