This is beyond shocking. In fact, it's every parent's worst nightmare.
 

Question is what to do about it. More laws seem beside the point. I wonder if it would be possible to jam cell phones just at the driver's seat, leaving other passengers free to chat or text if they wish. People would hate that, of course, and probably respond by pushing the speakerphone option and laying the phone on the passenger seat and yelling. But it's not just teenagers who get so engaged with their phones while they are driving that they aren't noticing what is going on around them.
 

I don't think there's any law that can keep someone from being an idiot.
 

I think we need a technology that would allow the kids to voice activate (handsfree)text communication with their friends. They may just not stop, (as unwise as that is,)so it ought to be handsfree somehow. Or could they have a designated text-er in the car, not the driver of course, the driver should get in the habit of handing over the phone/pda to someone else for the length of the ride. It is easy even for grownups to do just one quick thing at a red light or in stop&go; traffic. We need to bring out the old study that shows how many feet one travels when sneezing, coughing, in the car and add texting 10 characters, how many feet do you cover in that time I wonder?
 

*I* think we need a technology that detects when leftovers in the fridge are due to be thrown out.

--Standing Eagle
 

Hands free phoning is not the answer. Studies show that hands free does not significantly lessen the debilitating effects of using a phone while driving. Even using hands free phones, the driver is comparably impaired as a drunk driver.

Utah Study ("showing that motorists who talk on handheld or hands-free cellular phones are as impaired as drunken drivers")
http://unews.utah.edu/p/?r=062206-1

NYTimes report on study of actual crash data ("A study of Australian drivers found that those using cellphones were four times as likely to be involved in a serious crash regardless of whether they used hands-free devices like earpieces or speaker phones that have been perceived as making talking while driving safer."):
http://tinyurl.com/37nc58