"To put it plainly, distracted driving is a menace to society," said the U.S. Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood.

Yet despite the words of government officials, despite the public outcry, only six states (soon to be seven) in the entire country have completely banned hand-held cell phone use for drivers. Meanwhile, the body count grows. 

Drivers' hands are on the phone instead of the wheel, eyes are on the screen instead of the road, and accidents due to "distracted driving" are taking lives. The NHTSA found that crashes caused by distraction resulted in 5,870 fatalities in 2008.

Distraction, as defined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is "attention given to a non-driving-related activity, typically to the detriment of driving performance." In the old days, this might mean kids fighting in the back, fiddling with the radio, or trying to eat a three-course fast-food meal on the highway. Today, one distraction pales all others: cell phones.

Six states — California, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Utah, and Washington­ — have smartly banned hand-held cell phone use, along with the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. Oregon's law takes effect January 2010 to become the seventh.

The laws against cell phone use in these states (with the exception of Washington) are all primary enforcement; this means that drivers may be stopped and ticketed for talking on a hand-held phone without any other infraction. New Jersey police issued 118,254 tickets at $100 a piece for hand-held cell phone use during the first year of its ban. California issued 112,966 tickets for the same violation, but offenders face a menial fine of $20 for the first offense, and $50 for each following offense.

In Washington state, an officer may only ticket a driver for cell phone use as a secondary offense after pulling the driver over for a different moving violation.

No state bans all use of cell phones when driving a car, but 21 states and the District of Columbia have now recognized the need to ban cell phone use for our most dangerous drivers: teenagers.

Talking on a cell while driving certainly is dangerous, but texting while driving is even more so. Only 18 states and the District of Columbia have completely banned texting while driving, despite a report released by the NHTSA that found that drivers spend approximately "10 percent of the time looking away from the road when driving normally, versus 40 percent when text messaging." 

Setting the trend against texting while driving, Washington state was the first to pass an anti-texting while driving law in May 2007. The law was enacted in January 2008 and Washington State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste was quoted saying, "texting while driving was always a bad idea...things happen too fast on the highway to take your eyes off the road long enough to read or type a message." 

How To Stop It If You Can't See It?

The problem now is that police have to find a way to reasonably enforce laws against texting while driving. But in a state where cell phone use is a secondary offense, how can it be policed? How can these laws be enforced at all?

Since July 2008, the hand-held cell phone ban in Washington state has only produced 1,600 tickets because secondary violations are almost impossible to prove. Speaking about hand-held cell phone use among drivers, State Patrol spokeswoman Christina Martin said, "We still see it all the time." Ticketing for texting while driving has produced low numbers; only 230 tickets at $101 have been issued since January 2008.

When asked about the difficulty of enforcing the texting while driving law in Washington state, Dick Doane, a research investigator for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC) said, "Of course it is more difficult. If a crash occurs, or if there is some other offense, police can stop people in those cases. [Police] may well observe somebody talking or texting on a cell phone, and realize he/she is speeding and be able to stop them and ticket as well. But one of the differences is that you can see drivers holding cell phones, or you may know what texting looks like enough to stop someone, but you can't catch everybody equally."

Another problem is the hands-free technology that is still legal under Washington state law, Doane said, "all the research we have seen in our office shows that there is no safety advantage to using hands-free technology."

According to collision data summaries from the Washington State Department of Transportation, the number of cell phone related crashes actually went down by almost 1,000 from 2006 to 2007, but Doane proposed this was again because of hands-free technology.

At the end of our interview, Doane admitted that "the risk [of texting while driving] has to become more clearly understood" in order for police officials to be able to enforce laws against it.

In 4 Months, Just 6 Motorists Cited in Tennessee

Police officers trying to enforce this new law are seeing little success in most states. Only 712 drivers have been cited in California for texting while driving since its law was enacted in January of this year.

Tennessee police have also run up against the problem of enforcement. Their texting law, which was enacted on July 1 of this year, has been ineffective thus far. Metro Police reported that only six motorists have been cited since the law took effect. Officer Burl Johnson explained the difficulty enforcing this law saying, "If you came up and the [driver] says 'well no I was trying to find a phone number'...it would be kind of hard to say that they weren't."

Officer Joe Warren in Tennessee has a more optimistic approach; he believes, "It's easier to tell the difference between someone dialing a phone number as opposed to texting because dialing a phone number they're done in a second or two and they're talking." While Warren's theory may be plausible, there are times when a driver will pass too quickly for an officer to accurately catch every movement.

In Oklahoma, Sgt. Matthew Downing has found a new symptom to look for when trying to catch a texter: erratic behavior such as swerving across lanes, and running red lights, while a typical indication of driving while intoxicated, can also indicate texting while driving.

In an effort to lessen the amount of texting on the road, Utah decided to use education and emotion as strategies to keep road-texters at bay. Rep. Stephen Clark said, "The best way to enforce this is really through education, similar to the seat-belt and alcohol issues."

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) created a 15-minute documentary that told the true story of how a teen texting behind the wheel caused the death of two men. It is an incredibly emotional video that seems to be effective at getting drivers to think twice about using a cell phone while driving. The video has been viewed more than 260,000 times since it was released on Aug. 12th. According to a press release from UDOT, viewers from California, Florida, Idaho, Texas, Oregon, Georgia, Arizona, Illinois, and Oklahoma have also seen the video.  

The United States Transportation Department (USDOT) decided to weigh in on this controversial issue by holding a two-say summit hosted by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that began Wednesday, Sept. 30th. The goal was "to determine the best ways to reduce the number of crashes and deaths due to distracted driving." Five different panels lead by experts at the summit focused on data, research, technology, policy, and outreach.

The summit resulted in an Executive Order passed by President Obama directing federal employees "not to engage in texting when driving government vehicles, when using government-issued electronic devices while driving, and when driving their own vehicles using their own devices while on government business."

The White House blog, where the full statement by Ray LaHood can be found, outlines the goals for the future of cell phones and driving. The USDOT is to work with Congress and local and state governments to create three specific actions: make permanent restrictions on the use of cell phones and other electronic devices in rail operations; ban text messaging altogether and restrict the use of cell phones by truck drivers and interstate bus operators, and disqualify school bus drivers convicted of texting while driving from maintaining commercial driver's licenses.

Now that the federal government has addressed the dangers of cell phone use while driving, perhaps state and local governments will strengthen their penalties and increase enforcement to be a primary offense nationwide. This is of course hoping for the best. Cell phones will continue to captivate and entertain. We can only hope that when behind the wheel, common sense will prevail.

Read more on the issue:

Two effective messages not 2 drive and text

Federal workers banned from texting while driving

Put down the phone when driving, say lawmakers and advocacy groups