Phoning while driving getting attention it deserves

I hope I have made it clear, starting last January, that I think travelers need to know all they can about a land-based safety issue: Distracted driving caused by talking or texting on a cell phone while behind the wheel. After all, more than two-thirds of all business travel isn't in the air -- it's on the ground.

Just after the New Year's holiday, I posted a report on this blog on the National Safety Council calling for a complete ban on using a phone, handheld or not, along with texting and other distracted-driver behavior. I wrote a column the first week of February supporting such a ban.

Since then, a groundswell has pushed the issue into the news time and time again. The Philadelphia City Council passed an ordinance in the spring prohibiting use of handheld phones while driving; New Jersey already had such a law, and many other jurisdictions have adopted such rules or are considering them. The Inquirer and others have editorialized on the issue, supporting more regulation. Reports of deadly commuter-train and car crashes caused by the distraction of texting have given the story legs, as we say in the news biz.

What's new: The U.S. Department of Transportation yesterday held its first widely publicized conference on the issue of distracted driving. Find an AP story from Washington on that here.   . The most detailed reporting on the topic has been done by The New York Times, which published its latest installment in its "Driven to Distraction" series today. It's long, and well worth reading. Find it here.