Posted on February 6, 2010 by by Valeri

According to Techcrunch author Michael Arrington, a Googler interrupted his nice drive to a Google product briefing  by standing in front of his car at a pedestrian crossing.  And the reason for the Google employee doing that -  Michael was talking on his mobile “cell” while driving.

Cars behind me start swerving. I back up to go around him. He steps forward, vigilant in his defense of the law. I’m off the phone now, and snapping this picture didn’t help getting him to move on. The light changes. The light changes again. Cars are now backed up behind me.

I’m not sure what comes next in a situation like this. I can either drive over him or park my car. So I put the car in park, open the door to get out and discuss the situation with him. That’s when he ran away. His mission, apparently, accomplished.

Michael admits he was violating the law for talking on his mobile while driving and is expecting to pay a US$20 fine.  However, he also argues that blocking a street and creating a traffic hazard is a US$220 fine and that a mobile phone ban hasn’t actually resulted in less accidents.

It is just me or are we seeing more and more bloggers using their popular websites to either complain when things don’t go their way or to get compensations in exchange for a blog post?

The way I see it is instead of complaining and using TechCrunch to get back at this poor guy, he should really be glad that someone stopped him from talking on his mobile while driving as it is very dangerous.  Michael really has gotten away with relatively nothing, only having to pay US$20 and not AUS$300 (US$259) plus having three demerit points taken of your license like they are doing in Tasmania.

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