Could Drivers Face Total Cell Phone Bans?

Going Mobile During Traffic: Breaking the Habit

Thomas Kelly, an operations manager for the company who drives about 1,500 miles per month for business, admitted it was difficult to break the habit.

"It was a temptation," he said. "You look at the cell phone, it would be ringing, and you'd say, should I pick it up or should I not?"

Kelly, who carries both a work and a personal cell phone, now turns them off in the car. He said he's gotten used to just concentrating on his driving and even makes it a practice to follow the rule on his own time.

Kelly said it has not hurt his productivity and he knows the company acted because it's safer when employees concentrate 100 percent on their driving.

The National Safety Council admits that any effort to ban cell phones in vehicles will take years of work, whether it succeeds at all. The council likens it to campaigns to require seat belts and child safety seats in cars and to strengthen drunken-driving laws. At first drivers opposed many of those efforts. Now, they say this is accepted practice on the road, and few would want it any other way.

Suzan Gruber of Chicago, for one, said she'd welcome some time without a cell phone.

"That would be fantastic," she said. "That would be like the old days when nobody could get a hold of you."