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What we should be doing is what was in my first post: sterner punishments across the board. If you change lanes without signaling, if you run a stop sign, if you speed...no license for a year. The idea is to force people to take driving seriously. As far as the individual issue of phones in cars, I see it only as symptomatic of a larger problem, but that doesn't mean that one cannot treat the symptoms. I've been to Germany; it's a damn safe place to drive. Not just the Autobahn, but on every street and road. I don't remember seeing one traffic law being broken over the 2 and a half weeks I was there. I can't go 10 minutes in the US without seeing a law being broken. Just on the way back to the office after taking a lunch, I was watching changing lanes without signaling and speeding. It has to stop. Now normally a free society would fix itseff without the interference of govnermnet. Normally, one would recognise that the roads are becoming less and less safe (or have bene unsafe all along, either way), and work harder to observe the rules of the road. I don't see that. Statistics don't reflect improvement. My government teacher in high school said it best: freedom of a large populace breeds apathy. While I wish people could govnern themselves on this, they clearly can't. So we have to find somewhere else that is making this work: Germany. Driving tests are more difficult and expensive there, punishments are more harsh, and are regularly enforced (instead of the US way: laws only count when there are cops around).
These types of laws are a last resort. The responsibilty should rest with the populace. We should be able to control ourselves. If you know a friend who is a bad driver, then you should bug him or her about it until they stop. But we don't. We let it slide. I hate the fact that we might need laws like this, but not so much I'd be in denial about it. We do need them.
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