The Queen Jenuvia II, a ferry shuttling passengers between the South Korean ports of Jeju and Mokpo, ran aground at about 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday night. Ferries don’t often crash — it’s usually pretty hard to run into things in while at sea — yet this one managed to get into a novel predicament thanks to an all-too-familiar cause: Texting and driving. The ferry’s first mate was simply on his phone behind the wheel, according to reports, and ran astray of his intended course.
The ferry’s captain was off-duty at the time of the crash, and the first mate appeared to think the Yellow Sea was wide-open and safe. He told investigators he was reading the news at the helm, and ran aground in his distraction — injuring 27 passengers, according to the New York Times, though no one was seriously harmed. All 267 passengers and crew were pulled off the ship, with the captain, first mate, and helmsman all facing legal consequences ashore.
Don’t text and boat
It’s worth a reminder that, no matter how big and open the area you’re traversing seems to be, you shouldn’t operate your phone while behind the wheel of a vehicle — any vehicle. Boats can crash, cars can crash, motorcycles and planes and blimps can crash. Commanding the speed and direction of thousands of pounds of steel and glass should be a task that takes all of your attention, and you should never rank its priority below your news feed. The posts will still be there when you get back, I promise you.
The helmsman, first mate, and captain of the Queen Jenuvia II all face legal consequences for “injury by gross negligence” — an appropriate scale of negligence for endangering 267 people because you wanted to see some headlines. If you’re that desperate to keep abreast of the latest goings-on in the world, maybe be a passenger rather than at the helm.
