It is the current requisite hands-on manipulation of the device which causes the danger.
Mount the damn phone, with speech driven command software, rendering it hands free, and the whole game changes.
Until the preponderance of vehicles/phones are configured in such a manner, the danger is hardly “socialist drivel”.
Open your eyes on your next commute.
But that is not the case.
Read up on the laws being proposed and the drivel behind them. The assertion is that it is the very act of conversing with some one you cant see that causes the danger.
As if taking your eyes from the road to look at the kids behind you were less dangerous.
Do your home work. If it were simply banning handsets that was winding through the legislature, I wouldn't have addressed the loopy rationalization that is being pushed in the attempts to ban automotive cell use altogether.
The notion that ...rendering it hands free, and the whole game changes. doesn't jibe with my own (admittedly non-scientific) observations. It really doesn't seem to matter if they person is hands-free, or holding the infernal device to his/her ear, you can spot 'em from five cars behind. They're driving faster or slower than other traffic, are all over the lane, and exhibit a delayed reaction to traffic hazards vs. non-distracted drivers. I contend that they're worse than a driver with a car full of kids.
Not that Cali's cell phone law has had any discernable deterrent effect. Not sure that more laws are the answer, but there does seem to be a pretty strong negative effect if you look at actual driving in traffic.