A friend of mine was killed on Tuesday..... by a cell phone.

I was notified by a company wide email yesterday that one of my fellow co-workers had died in a tragic accident near Midland. While I can't claim the gentleman as a close friend, I did know him. We had met at probably half a dozen company functions over our 20-plus careers with the company and I'd found him a sensible and friendly man.

He had chosen to take early retirement last year after 29 years with us. On Tuesday he was out riding his bicycle on the generous shoulder of a west Texas highway when he was struck from behind by a pickup almost certainly doing at least the posted 55 mph speed limit. We're talking West Texas here, folks. If any of you have been to the Midland-Odessa area you know that it's so flat out there that you can stand on almost any highway on a Wednesday and see Sunday coming in one direction and going in the other. There's not a dozen trees between Midland and Canadian border. This spot was no different.

So why was my friend killed after less than a year of enjoying the life he'd worked so long to be able to enjoy? A cell phone. The driver of the pickup is obviously such an extremely busy Type-A personality that he cannot take time out of his busy schedule to devote his faculties to operating a 5,000 lb. pickup traveling nearly a mile a minute. And now a blameless gentleman is dead by his hand, and a wife, children and grandchildren left behind to grieve Jerry's senseless passing.

If you're one of the hundreds of Victoria drivers I see everyday doing the same thing, please, do yourself and the rest of us a favor: hire yourself a chauffeur before you kill yourself or someone else.

Ernie