When my daughters were small and in their formative years, one of them — Kate, I think it was — coined the phrase “boss of the world.”

It was in response to one more thing her father had asked her to do. She turned to him and very politely inquired, “Who made you boss of the world?” It was as if she was really trying to figure out those relationships.

So, it became something of a catchphrase in our household. If someone was becoming a little overzealous and bossing other family members around too much, “Who made you boss of the world?” was usually enough to calm things down, to make everyone step back and think about what they were doing.

We do tend to be a bossy household.

Now that I spend more time in traffic commuting from my downtown home to Yonge and Sheppard (north of the 401!), I often think about that phrase. I want to be boss of the world. I am afraid that being around idiot drivers brings out the dictator in me.

The first thing I would do is ban talking on cellphones while driving. Yesterday, an idiot woman cut me off — at 110 kilometres an hour — when she moved into my lane without looking. I may well have been in her blind spot. But when you are holding your cellphone to your ear with your left hand and busy talking, it can be hard to turn your head and check your blind spot. Or maybe there are more blind spots than usual.

To add insult to injury, she was totally oblivious to my racing heart. She continued her drive and her chat.

And this isn’t a female phenomenon. In this incident, it was a woman. It could easily have been a man, hard-wired as men are.

I want to know: has anyone done any research into how many accidents are caused by drivers talking on cellphones? Is this just a Toronto thing — because Torontonians can’t live without being connected electronically by some device or other — or is this a problem across Canada? Do farmers drive across Prairie roads with cellphones attached to their ears, running down cows?

Or maybe I am just getting old and my reflexes slow. I find when I am travelling on Toronto’s speedways, driving takes all my attention. I want to be alert because anything can happen.

And it did for Ozy and Lisa, Investment Executive’s dynamic mother/daughter team. For those of you who know Ozy, our advertising sales director, and Lisa, our circulation and magazine sales person, they were in a car accident last week in which their car was totalled.

Thank goodness for seat belts and air bags — as we have said a hundred times around our office in the past week. Ozy has a broken kneecap, thanks to an engine that travelled backward on impact and connected with her knee. She is hobbling around on crutches. Lisa is still very sore from the impact of her airbag and seat belt. And she is very uncomfortable driving.

For them, the unexpected happened. Now they are dealing with the repercussions.

I must admit, when faced with bad and impolite driving, I have always felt the impulse to stop the car, get out and pound on the window of the negligent driver and point out to him or her exactly how he or she has gone wrong. It is probably just as well for my own safety I have refrained from that particular “boss of the world” fantasy.

But Ozy’s and Lisa’s accident has made me even more vigilant. I bug my family when we drive, and harass my photographer husband about wearing his seat belt. I refuse to hold his camera in my lap in case the air bag goes off, making myself quite unpopular.

The reality is the unexpected does happen. Surely it would help if we turned the cellphones off.

TESSA WILMOTT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF