Texting Your Way to the Pits
Jul 12th, 2009 | 20 responses
I suppose I really have become a bit of a cold-hearted old curmudgeon in my golden years, because I know I should have a lot more sympathy for this poor girl. And yet, I still laughed.
Teen Girl Falls In Open Manhole While Texting
NEW YORK (CBS) ?It was an accident waiting to happen — an open sewer and a 15-year-old girl who was texting while she walked.
Alexa Longueira, a high school sophomore, was walking along Victory Boulevard near Travis Avenue on Staten Island Wednesday evening when she felt the earth move and was plunged into smelly darkness.
To get the required legal bits out of the way early, the girl is absolutely right. The DPS failed to put up orange cones and barriers around the open hole and left nobody there to attend it. They are in the wrong and she is in the right. She suffered some injuries – none life threatening, thankfully – and will doubtless be owed some compensation from the city. Yes, she should have had the common sense to be watching where she was walking, but the law is the law.
But somehow I can’t get away from the overriding social commentary found in this story. She’s walking along, obsessed with her mobile phone as so very many people are these days, and totally failing to watch where she’s placing one foot in front of the other. She strolled straight into a hole large enough to swallow a teenage girl. Legal questions aside, aren’t we allowed to ask if maybe she doesn’t bear some personal responsibility for not taking more of an interest in the world around her as she passes through it?
And for bonus points, here’s the kicker. She falls into a five foot deep sewer in an accident traumatic enough that she lost one of her shoes in the process. Yet she managed to keep hold of the phone. I’m sure there’s some sort of social moral in this tale for us somewhere, but I’m too old and dense to tease it out of the tale just now. You’re welcome to give it a go yourselves.
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20 Responses to “Texting Your Way to the Pits”
Ha!
its bushes fault!
I have a rule, when I'm walking around, be it the city or the country, my Blackberry stays in my pocket when the e-mail/text noise goes off. If the BB rings for a phone call, I have a Bluetooth headset so my focus is still straight ahead. I refuse to answer texts and e-mails unless I've stopped ALL motion (preferably sitting down). LOL!
The reason we have eyes is to SEE. And that doesn't mean SEE a damn phone only. Put it away please.
dear snifft, you made me laugh
T-Steel: youre far wiser than your years
and… long ago, being a waitress, I stepped backward to see if there were any more dishes on the topmost high shelf…. and fell through a huge hole in the floor that was normally covered by a full size door in the floor, because it covered a staircase to the basement. I thought I had died, for everything went black. Broke this and that, but was ok. Bones mend. Still, you dont have to be on a phone to 'fall.' You can just be having a boss who is yelling at everyone in the back room and trying to do everything faster and faster in order to try to please him.
In any and either case, you are right T-Steel, about split attention. CAn be so dangerous.
dr.e
Sad to think, though, that as a quirk of fate, this young lady failed to qualify for this year's Darwin Awards.
I've seen several stories on the Internet about this silly little twat, and all were poking fun at at the negligence on her part. I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that her lawsuit lawyer brings these stories up, babbling about how she's been “embarrassed and ridiculed” by strangers and therefore, along with the original $50,000, she also deserves at least $5,000,000 more.
Mark my words…
And you know what? She'll get it…
I lived in NYC for 30 yrs. If you are texting and falling down manhole covers you are also stepping in to traffic.Classic plea for tort reform! Walking while stupid.
I sometimes wonder if Darwin way right (and I actually do not believe in his theory.)
Somehow, I wonder if the idea of :”gene purification” is at worik here…..?????
Alas, she survived…..
So last nite me + trevor went 2 movies with his cuz + we saw Trans4mers2 + his cuzs lil sis came becuz she was bored lol + she tried to hit on Trev but shes only 12 so me + her went into the bathroom and I had a lil talk her and BTW the movie wuz so bad + she started crying so trevors cuz had to go into the girls room and………
It is amusing to me how every generation holds the next generation's techie past time with amusement or disdain. Parents in their 20s couldn't understand why their kids spent all their time listening to the radio when they could be outside. Those kids disdained their kids' TV, who disdained their kids' personal computers or walkmans, who hated the next generation's cell phones, who hated the texting they didn't grow up with. There have to be similar stories of people laughing at some accident triggered by every interesting device that the laughers didn't grow up on. The texters will write funny articles in their 30s and 40s about how 15-year-old Susie fell in the man hole while obssessed with her Spacely Sprocket.
Survival of the fittest.
NO we do not need any type of “reform” for texting. Common sense and the lessons learned the hard way…. (i.e. bet she never does it again)…
One of our social problems now is that one person makes a dumb mistake (we all do) and liberals start yelling for reform and rules and regulations to be put in place… examples of these are found on anything you purchase… Do we really need to be told that McDonald's coffee is HOT??? Oi.
The scary thing is….the kids about a year older than her are out DRIVING and texting.
Another wise Latina.
katgib13: Why do you think auto insurance rates for teens are so high? I've seen studies that the human brain doesn't really “mature” until it's about 25 years old. In point of fact car accidents go way down at about this point; that's why insurance rates drop once you're 25.
Numbers don't lie: Teens do stupid things and the accident rates by age bear that out. I look back and cringe at some of the stupid things I did growing up.
I think the great American philosopher Mel Brooks determined the following definitions:
Tragedy is when I, personally, get a hangnail.
Comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die.
First off her race has nothing to do with it, FYI she is not Latino, and just saying that was wrong, what does anyones race have to do with it when something bad happens to them? Ive read comments on all sorts of boards and blogs and I have to tell you, people today have nothing better than to bash each others, well, being or mis-fortunes. A mistake was made and on the part of the DEP workers who were working at the time, everyone is bashing the teen (15 years old) for not watching where she is going? How about the fact that the ADULT DEP worker lacks the common sense to NOT leave a manhole unatteneded or better yet, dont even open it until the proper (and by law) safety precautions are in place. Oh and one more tidbit…she was being “handed” the phone-which was not even hers…
If it were any one of you…or your own…I dont think you would be blogging away here about how stupid you are…or what an idiot your mother is etc…anyway just my two sense
That young girls MOM
joe242 – Good for the city she was “another wise Latina”, had this been a Jewish girl her shyster dad's lawsuit would have probably bankrupted NYC.
Hey, I walked into a parking meter once. My distraction was a beautiful girl on the other side of the street. I made a first class impression, landing on my can with a bruised ego. If I was texting, this might not have happened.
She is entitled to some $$$$$ … wasnt her fault there were no cones or someone not attending to the open manhole. So she was texting on her phone, big deal. I am sure if it was one of you walking around and some sexy mama or hot hunk caught your eye and you werent paying attention to where you were going, you would complain also…. correct? and before you all go nutso, I said WALKING and texting, not DRIVING.