Bring the fun back!

From what I can see, and admittedly this is anecdotal, the no texting while driving laws aren’t working.

Everybody texts, and those who aren’t are actively trying to, or composing tweets in their heads, doing anything to forget that they’re trapped in a car.

And why? Because driving, which used to be fun, just isn’t anymore. It’s become like your electric toothbrush. Whatever novelty there was wore off long ago.

Witness the enthusiasm these people had over Google’s driverless cars:

“If I had a self-driving car, I could spend more time hanging out with my kids.”

“There’s nothing that makes you feel the least bit threatened.”

“I love this!”

We can’t wait for the car to just take over.

There are plenty of car ads that imply driving could be fun, if you’re a professional driver on a closed course in a mountainous European country, but the rest of us are over it.

And then I started hearing stories like this:

“Three teens jumped into her Kia, the only problem was, none of them knew how to drive a stick shift,” said one reporter.

Every city has a story like this, that this news anchor couldn’t read without laughing, “Because the gunman forgot something: How to drive a stick shift!”

The cops are noticing, “For those of you who still have stick shift vehicles there is an advantage to having those – younger people don’t know how to drive them.”

Stick shifts! Bring them back! They’re fun! They make it impossible to text! And they baffle the current generation of juvenile delinquents.