Just thirty years ago, electronic clip-on pagers and cell phones were solely the domain of on-call physicians and others of the emergency workforce. That barrier is no more. Nowadays as I'm driving, I can see more than half of the people around me are on their cell phones. Not even talking on the phone. Just staring at their phones, whether it be playing the latest version of Candy Crush, "swiping right" on a potential love-interest, or DM-ing their already-snagged-partner to pick up some cucumbers at County Market.

I really hate that.

There is nothing more hazardous on a highway than people who aren't watching what they're doing because they feel entitled to be mobile multi-taskers. That's why I believe cellphone-using drivers are more dangerous than the woman I just passed who is driving with an Australian shepherd on her lap.

Excluding emergency personnel, there is nothing that requires people talk on their cell phone while driving.

I'll wager for every one-hundred people who get a phone call while driving, one ambulance driver also gets a phone call while driving because one of the aforementioned persons, who was driving, but not really driving, subsequently was in a car accident.

One would think hospitals shouldn't complain, since rampant cell phone usage just means more business for them in terms of increased emergency room visits. However, how can an ambulance actually get to the hospital in time to bring those HMOs more business, when the minivan in front of them remains blocking the intersection because the driver's hands-free-headset conversation with her best friend from college is more important than hearing the emergency vehicle sirens that would alert her to the flashing lights and the dying person behind her?

There must be something about bluetooth phone headsets that not only causes auditory unawareness, but also leads to visual impairment, as evidenced by the kid wearing earbuds while talking to himself who just crossed in front of me at the green light. I have been brought up to believe that everything has a reason. So perhaps this unexpected and immediate stop was meant to remind me that I haven't had my brakes checked recently.

And yes, I am angry that this dude whose life I saved with my defensive driving can flip me off, but I won't be the one feeling "sore" when he encounters a different driver who, like him, is on their bluetooth earbuds at a different intersection in time.

Without apex predators other than microscopic viruses that make people buy toilet paper by the pallet, I guess cellphones will have to be Nature's way of selecting the fittest.

In any case, my ambulance got to the emergency room in time. So, now I feel better.