Driving me crazy

I saw a news report that Indiana is close to passing legislation that officially makes it illegal to text while driving.

I'm not really opposed to this kind of a law. I just have a hard time seeing how it will be enforced. I mean, how does a police officer know a driver is texting and not just glancing at their lap repeatedly, because, you know, they're reading the latest Harry Potter book? I was looking at a study that said crashes have increased in some states after texting bans were introduced; the theory posited by researchers being that drivers simply hide their phones in their laps, making it more dangerous than if they held the phone in their line of vision. I'm not sure I buy that, and even if I did, I'm vehemently opposed to abandoning an idea just because 'people are going to do it anyway.'

But if we're going to have a law, I'd like to see it be effective.

And, isn't reckless driving already illegal? No matter the cause? If a twenty-something girl texts quickly to her mother while sitting in traffic, is that inherently worse than me flipping through my son's school folder as I drive home after picking him up? (I try not to do this....I usually check his folder while we are sitting in the parking lot. Sometimes I forget though, and then Travis says, "check out the snowman I made out of Q-tips and pipe cleaners and fruit roll ups" and I get curious and don't want to wait til I get home...) At any rate, have we decided that texting is evil enough that even doing it responsibly is worse than some other irresponsible distraction?

For instance, a couple weeks ago, I got stopped at a stoplight, and a car pulled up to the light in the lane next to me. He stopped kind of quickly, so I glanced over. The driver was not texting. He wasn't on his phone at all. He wasn't eating, or reading, or even putting on make-up.

He was solving a flipping Rubix Cube.

If that guy gets into an accident and kills someone, do we feel better about it, because at least he wasn't texting?

Should I write a letter to my Congressman, asking for the state to immediately impose a ban upon solving Rubix Cubes while driving?

Obviously, I get it, I understand the likelihood of an accident being cause by a texting driver is far greater than by my friend Mr. Rubix, simply because the sheer volume of texters greatly outnumbers the number of idiots willing to waste their time on that horrible, horrible puzzle cube. But my point is, are we really doing any good by focusing on one manifestation of distraction, when there are so, SO many ways to get distracted while driving?(Take it from me, I spend way too much time in the car reaching behind me to retrieve Sophie's dropped stuffed dolphin, or threatening one of the boys to get their feet off their brother's lap, or glancing in the rearview mirror so Noah can show me what 'surprise' he found in his car seat.)

Regardless, this won't affect me. I don't text. I barely use my cell phone. I've always hated talking on the phone, and now all of a sudden I'm expected to carry one with me ALL THE TIME?? And if people can't get a hold of me on THEIR schedule, they get annoyed with me? Sorry, not my thing.