Linda Doyle set out in her car for her daily volunteer work at the Oklahoma Humane Society, feeding a population of feral cats. The light turned green at the exit from her Oklahoma City community, and she drove out. Moments later, a 20-year-old driver who’d been talking on his cell phone for less than a minute ran a red light and hit her car at 45 miles per hour. Linda, 61, was pronounced dead that night from blunt force trauma to the head, neck and chest. The irony, says Linda’s daughter, Jennifer Smith, is that her mother was killed by someone doing something Jennifer and her family did every day. As a real estate agent and mom, Jennifer was constantly on her cell in the car, checking in with clients or her kids. Two years ago, when the fatal crash happened, many weren’t aware of the extreme risks.

Today, growing ranks of government agencies, safety advocacy groups and companies are working to inform drivers that cell-phone-related crashes in the United States claim more than 6,000 lives each year, and hundreds of thousands more are injured, according to the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. But here’s the catch: Cell phones, text messaging, Blackberrys and Bluetooths have undeniably made the lives of working mothers easier and more efficient. You can rush from a morning meeting to a client lunch and check in with your child-care provider on the way. You can miss a conference call to attend your child’s school play and get a phone update driving back to the office. It may feel difficult to give up these tools, but using them when behind the wheel carries a heavy price, experts say. “Driving with this kind of distraction could cost a life—yours or someone else’s,” says Kara Macek of the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). “No conversation is worth risking that.” Even so, a federal study determined that 11 percent of drivers are talking on their cell phones at any given time, putting themselves and others in danger.

Driving Dangers

Imagine letting your child ride in a car driven by someone with a .08 blood alcohol level. Would you feel your child was safe? Not likely. So consider this: “We know from several studies that drivers with a .08 blood alcohol level have slightly better reaction times than those talking on a cell phone,” says David Teater, senior director of transportation initiatives at the National Safety Council. Of course, texting is even more dangerous than talking because there are visual and mechanical distractions along with the cognitive distraction of a conversation. Staying connected is truly addictive—that’s why so many refer to their PDA as a “CrackBerry”—but answering a call or reading a text is an addiction that must be controlled when it means potentially injuring or killing someone, adds Teater. Experts caution that using your cell phone with a handsfree device doesn’t eliminate the danger. Even though both of your hands are on the steering wheel, you may be distracted by your phone conversation instead of paying close attention to the road, says Teater. It’s easy to equate a hands-free cell chat to conversing with a passenger in the car, something most drivers do. But this is an inaccurate assumption, Teater asserts. “A passenger will stop the conversation if the driver has to make a traffic decision,” he explains. “If the light turns yellow and the driver needs to decide to keep going or slow down, the passenger will stop talking. If someone’s about to pull out in front of you, the passenger can point it out.” So there’s an extra set of eyes in the driving environment to help avoid danger. That’s not the case with someone you’re talking to on the phone.

Policies in Progress

Though cell phone use while driving poses a threat to those on the road, it’s not illegal. Unlike driving while intoxicated or without a seat belt, cell talking and texting have not been universally prohibited by law. Only 25 states (plus Washington, DC, and Guam) currently ban texting while driving, according to the GHSA. Only seven states (plus DC and the U.S. Virgin Islands) ban handheld cell phone use while driving. No states ban all cell phone use for all drivers (some ban it for novice or school-bus drivers). “However, many of the states that don’t have current laws are exploring legislation, and we expect the number of state laws to continue to rise,” says Macek. Along with current and pending state laws, two federal bills have been proposed: The Distracted Driving Prevention Act would allocate additional car safety education funds to states that pass distracted-driving laws; conversely, the Alert Drivers Act would withdraw federal funding from states that don’t enact distracted-driving bans. One step you can take to help make roads safer is to call your local legislator and voice support for laws to ban cell phone use on the road, says U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. “I also hope drivers will put their cell phones in the glove compartment when they get behind the wheel,” he adds. “Parents can set a good example for their kids this way, and also by not calling or texting your teens when you know they’re driving.” Try driving without your cell for just a week, suggests Teater. “You’ll probably find you didn’t miss anything that couldn’t wait until you’re off the road.”

Concerned Companies

The private sector is joining the fight, too. Chrysler Group was the first automaker to establish a policy prohibiting employees from texting with company-provided devices while driving in company-owned vehicles. “The development of certain technologies requires responsible companies to make changes to ensure a safe environment,” says Chrysler’s Michael Palese. Other car companies including Volvo and GM have now initiated anti-distracted-driving policies for their employees. Allstate has enacted a distracted-driving policy, which prohibits employees from texting while driving company vehicles. Plus, the insurance giant has developed a campaign called X the Txt to spark discussions between parents and teens about distracted driving and road safety. Among the resources provided are a family pledge and a parent-teen driving contract (find them at allstateteendriver.com). “We felt it was important to help parents start this conversation,” says Lisa Cochrane, Allstate’s VP of marketing. Additionally, 24 employers that operate fleet vehicles have an anti-distracted-driving policy, and almost three fourths of these companies have or are planning policies that ban the use of all mobile devices behind the company wheel, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. If your company doesn’t yet have a policy on texting and driving, go to allstate.com/xthetxt for a message you can copy and send to your HR department to get the ball rolling.

The Road Ahead

After her mother’s death, Jennifer Smith, with other families of distracted-driving victims, set out to publicize the dangers and statistics. Last January, she launched FocusDriven, an advocacy group for victims of car crashes involving drivers using cell phones. “Putting human faces to these stories is what’s going to make this behavior stop,” says Jennifer. Perhaps surprisingly, one of the most outspoken advocates of her cause is Christopher Hill, the young man responsible for the death of Jennifer’s mother. Having pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide (a misdemeanor in Oklahoma), he has worked to help make people aware of how dangerous a few seconds on a cell phone while driving can be. He’s given lectures to college students, been interviewed by newspaper reporters and appeared on television shows. “He made a mistake, a bad decision,” says Jennifer. “He has to live with the fact that he took my mother’s life. Our family has forgiven him, and now we’re fighting this fight together.”