Now that many people have been killed or injured due to cell phone accidents — killed by drivers being distracted while calling or texting — the inevitable but gallingly slow process of legislatively addressing the problem is proceeding.

In Texas alone this week, some progress has been seen in communities around Houston, as well as in the capital city of Austin.

Austin’s public safety task force this week passed a resolution directing Austin City Council to have its city manager develop regulations to prohibit text-messaging while driving a car. The city manager and his staff are expected to create such a proposal and give it to city council members for consideration.

Meanwhile, the cities of Kemah and Santa Fe reportedly are considering ordinances which would ban handheld cell phone use by drivers within school zones.

Why all the fuss? Because cell phones, in effect, are killers. That is to say, cell phones can be fatal when persons choose to call, answer or text rather than devote their full attention to operating a heavy piece of machinery (a car or truck) while often traveling at high speeds, though fatal accidents can occur at almost any speed.

Such persons’ indifference to their primary duty of driving, and their distractions due to calling, answering or texting on a cell, are a deadly component of traffic conditions, which can be tough enough if all drivers are paying close attention. Those who drive while using cell phones, it’s said, even can be as distracted and inattentive as someone who’s intoxicated. If you’ve ever seen a car aimlessly drift into other lanes, then noticed the driver was on a cell phone, you know this to be true.

In Galveston County’s Santa Fe community, the proposed ordinance would prohibit handheld cell phone use in school zones during posted hours, with a fine of up to $200. Drivers would still be able to use hands-free cell phones in school zones and to make emergency calls on any phone.

That’s very similar to the ordinance passed in West University Place earlier this year, when it became the first Houston-area community to ban hand-held cell phone use in school zones.

According to a Houston Chronicle report, most other area school districts have made no move toward such an ordinance, with one district’s spokeswoman saying “we haven’t had any problems with it (cell phones).”

But having a fatally injured child would constitute a “problem,” would it not? And cities and school districts should not wait for an inevitable tragedy to occur to create protective ordinances.

For many, sadly, the wait is over. An estimated 2,600 persons die and 330,000 are injured in American traffic accidents each year due to cell phone distractions and driver negligence while using a cell phone. Now that’s a problem.

Progress to correct this problem is slow — although steady. California and New York have laws regulating use of hand-held cell phones while driving, while Alaska, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey and West Virginia have laws specifically prohibiting driver text messaging, which also is forbidden in Washington, D.C.

Worldwide, 25 countries have seen fit to prohibit or restrict drivers from using hand-held cell phones while driving.

While the Santa Fe school district measures are admirable, you don’t have to be a school child to suffer in a cell phone accident. If you or any loved one has been injured in a cell phone accident in which a cell phone distraction caused a collision, contact a cell phone accident lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates.

Whether or not current laws prohibit use of cell phones while driving, they do prohibit disobeying the rules of the road. And those who disregard such rules in order to make a call can be held responsible for their negligence.

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