Governor Branstad is signalling his support for a law that would ban motorists from driving with one hand and having a phone in the other. “If all we do is say: ‘You can’t text and drive,’ how do you prove that somebody was texting?” Branstad asks. “They could be looking at this device in their hands and say: ‘Well, I wasn’t texting,’ and so you can’t get a conviction.”

Cell phone providers, insurance companies and the state’s law enforcement community are lobbying legislators to make it illegal to handle an electronic device while driving. Advocates say crash data indicates there’s been a dramatic increase in distracted drivers causing accidents.

State officials say 70 percent of fatal wrecks in the past three years were caused by a vehicle that drifted out of its lane and investigators suspect many of those drivers were distracted by their smart phone.

(Radio Iowa)