their habits most people didn't.

Then the law came in requiring people to have hands free kits. This actually did make a big difference when it came in. Sellers of Bluetooth accessories had a boom on their hands and people changed their behaviour.

The biggest change came though when companies such as the one I worked for began to receive legal advice from their lawyers, indicating that they may be held liable for accidents that people have if they were driving and answered a phone on company business. Overnight our work culture changed. On Monday it was a good thing to call Jim if he was driving over to a client meeting, after all that was 'dead' time and from a company point of view it was getting more value out of him if he was talking on the phone. On Tuesday however Jim was told that he shouldn't be making calls while he was driving as the company considered it was more important to keep him alive! Further more we were told not to call someone if we thought they were driving, and if we did we should expect to get his voicemail until he stopped and could call us back.

The change was a dramatic one in terms of driving/phone use. And its not just our company. Its now no longer considered rude not to answer your cell phone while you're driving, in fact if someone can hear you're in a car people will check to make sure you aren't the one driving before carrying on the conversation.

From a safety point of view its great, and from a work point of view its better. The fact that the law isn't resulting in tickets from police officers isn't the point. Its where they are taken seriously by companies who then change their behaviour that it makes a difference.

That's why I was so disappointed about the story of Maria Shriver. It seems that she isn't taking this seriously, and that's symptomatic that California as a whole hasn't taken it seriously.

I'm at a loss as to why she considers donating an old phone to a charity (however worthy the charity may be) as a appropriate action here. It's a nice thing to do but won't make the roads any safer at all.

In this case maybe the law needs to be tightened and actively enforced. Larger fines, possibly driving bans would be a way to get individuals to notice, and the threat of corporate manslaughter charges to get companies to change their cultures as well.

Enforcing this wouldn't be problem. In the case of an accident all you'd need to do is check if the Phone had been on at the time of the crash and check the phone records. In the same way that the police would check your alcohol limits if they had any reason to suspect you'd been drinking after a crash.