Being on the road in recent years has gotten more treacherous than ever.  With the death of Dale Earnhardt at the beginning of this century, my awareness was raised over just how many road raging Nascar wannabes there actually are on the road.  By seeing the clips shown over and over of Nascar, I became aware that the driving behavior that I was experiencing on the road was pretty equivalent, albeit, mostly at lesser speeds.  I began to recognize the drafting of bumpers, the weaving in and out of traffic at speeds higher than posted speed limits, and the pushing between painted lanes as wannabe material.  These drivers fail to realize that Earnhardt and his colleagues were all professional drivers operating inside the confines of walled tracks under circumstances inimitable on our nation's normal roadways.  Add to this Nascar-era driving mentality, the proliferation of portable electronic gadgets and you have a recipe for disaster on our roadways and highways. 
 
I live in an area primarily populated by the young, and then infiltrated by the old during the toasty winter season here in the Southeast.  If the summer is unbearable here for most to live, it becomes more unbearable when you have to encounter the new teens with their new school year friends all loaded into a car texting and dialing with their hands while driving with their knees, alongside the elderly sporting their out of state plates with one hand occupied by a cigarette and the other by the cell they are holding to their ear.  Neither of these two groups has a hand available for signalling just exactly which stupid move they are going to make next because they are holding onto that cell phone for dear life.  It's ridiculous.  Hang up and drive!  Both of these two groups without electronic devices have not only the highest accident rates, but the highest fatality rates while driving.  Throw the teens and elderly in with the multitasking soccer mom taxi services and the business people with computers installed checking their inventory, calls, next appointments, and it's a jungle on the roadways. Then we add the truckers, train engineers, school bus drivers, commercial bus drivers and we have a bigger web of disaster where virtually no one is primarily paying attention to the roadways while they navigate vehicles of several tons at alarming speeds, not using signalling, weaving through traffic and making turns with one hand.  Now, put a cigarette, soda, coffee or brush in the other hand that is not texting, dialing, emailing, surfing the web, or holding the cell phone to the ear, and you wonder WHY do they even bother to pretend they are driving?  
 
Driving has become a mere inconvenient interruption in the constant flow of texts.  In December 2008 110 billion texts were sent according to the cell phone industry trade group, CTIA.  This is 11 times more than the 10 billion texts that were sent in December of 2005.  The problem has accelerated enormously with family plans, unlimited texting, and the proliferation of cell phones to teenagers and elderly with drivers' licenses.  This was the most recent part of the cell phone market where sales have been saturated. In addition, everyone has witnessed texters driving with their knees, driving with the chin on the wheel, or just simply free-floating the wheel with the assumption that the vehicle will continue on course.  And, despite what the Jetsons predicted, our vehicles are not operating by themselves in 2009.  This issue requires immediate legislative attention.
 
A recent University of Utah study shows that distracted drivers ar two times more dangerous than someone who is at the .08 legal limit of intoxication.  Currently, 18 states plus the District of Columbia outlaw texting while driving, and only 6 states have the common sense to outlaw handheld devices used without handsfree capability.  Yet, last year, there were 5,870 deaths and 515,000 people injured in the United States directly as a result of texting. The under 20 years and 20-29 year old age groups, followed by the elderly were the most fatal.  These statistics correspond to the normal fatality statistical distribution, but just puts them on steroids when you add the texting. 
 
So what should the Obama administration and Congress do? Enact legislation now to force States to ban texting while driving or being a pedestrian on a roadway of any kind.  Enact legislation to force states to outlaw handheld devices not using voice activation and a mount other than your hands.  Make the penalties enforceable, immediate and sufficient to deter these bad behaviors.  Allow law enforcement to be able to conduct a primary stop for the behavior.  The roadway bad deaths, injuries, and countless near misses, as well as the hardcore science are there to support the legislation, but so is the ever powerful, wealthy cell phone industry lobbying the halls of our federal legislature.  I'm sure that the victims and their families of these fatalities and injuries would support firm legislation with hefty fines and a punishment dictating that a driver who kills someone else while texting, emailing or dialing by hand be charged at least with manslaughter if not murder.  This may seem a bit stern, however, it's an intentional choice when you contact your office, spouse, or friend instead of keeping both hands devoted to the operation of your vehicle.  Senator Charles Schumer of New York has legislation pending on the table that would pull 25% of federal highway funding from any state that fails to enact a ban on texting in both public and private vehicles, and by train and bus drivers.  The recent Mass transit disasters resulting in Boston and Los Angeles prompted his bill.  It's not far enough reaching by most standards, but it's a good start.  It will be interesting to see whether Americans' safety on the highway is put in front of the cell phone lobbyists' interests.  And, just in case you were wondering, this piece was not composed on my Blackberry or iPhone while driving.

Kimberly Wilcox is currently freelance writing about financial politics, as well as Healthcare policy, specifically, Chemical Injury and its medical & lifestyle consequences.  She is a lifestyle coach to others with chemical injury, chronic fatigue, autism, Gulf War Syndrome & Fibromyalgia, as well as to professional athletes desiring peak performance without use of illegal PED's.  She is an expert on Green Living and her new book will soon be published about the Green Life that she has been forced to live for the last decade.