I am beginning to detest

mobile communication devices even more than I did before. Can someone please explain to me why anyone needs to be constantly attached to a "mobile phone" as if it was some sort of umbilical cord?

The Senior Cat may by 90 but he is not stupid. He is still alert. He is still wary, as he has been all his life, of traffic. 

He had a near miss yesterday as he came home from church on his gopher. Someone was "texting" a message and seated behind the wheel of a travelling car at the same time. I say "seated" because they were most definitely not driving the vehicle. They were not in control of it.

You cannot use a mobile communication device and drive at the same time. It is simply not safe. The law recognises this - although it does not go far enough in my view and should totally outlaw the use of such devices in vehicles which are moving in traffic. People managed without them once. They can manage without them again. 

The Senior Cat was where he should have been. He was on a footpath. He was travelling at the speed he should have been travelling - a walking pace. He was watching the traffic coming out of driveways - as he should have been. 

The culprit was on the roadway - and veered off onto the footpath ahead of the Senior Cat. The Senior Cat had to come to a sudden halt. The culprit, according to the Senior Cat, merely returned to the roadway and continued on. Unfortunately the Senior Cat did not have a chance to get the number of the vehicle - and, even if he had, there would have been little that could have been done. 

Doing something can be dangerous. Someone else I know was, as a pedestrian, waiting to cross at lights. They used their own device to photograph someone turning on a red arrow with a phone in one hand and a drink in the other. The vehicle did an illegal u-turn and they had their phone snatched.

The daughter of a neighbour had an accident recently. Fortunately no other vehicle was involved and nobody was hurt. The first question she was asked was "were you using your phone?" It was just as well for her that she could say no. Her phone was where it should have been - in her bag in the boot of the car - and a witness to the accident had retrieved it for her. 

What is so urgent about the vast majority of messages that they cannot wait? Is "CU5" really necessary? Are any of the many other similar messages really necessary? Apparently someone died sending a "smiley face" - what does that really say about them and their relationships with other people.

I could have lost the Senior Cat because someone was doing a similar thing. The Senior Cat could just as easily lose me because of that sort of selfish behaviour. Any of us could lose anybody we love.  

How can you really say you love someone if you are driving in a manner which amounts to having your eyes closed?