So is talking and driving unsafe or what?

Don't do this, either.

A federal agency is calling for a nationwide ban on all cellphone use while driving, Investor's Business Daily reports. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all cellphone use by drivers, including texting, be outlawed. The ban would include hands-free calls.

There are a few problems here. 

There's no compelling reason for it. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that 3,092 traffic deaths last year involved distracted drivers. But using a cell phone is only one of many driver distractions. Eating and drinking while behind the wheel are two others, and they are far more dangerous than yapping on a phone. 

In fact, a 2009 NHTSA study found that 80% of all car wrecks are caused by drivers eating or drinking — not cellphone use — with coffee-guzzling the top offender. 

Then there's this. According to federal data, traffic deaths have fallen from 2.1 per 100 million vehicle miles in 1990, when virtually no one had a cellphone, to 1.1 in 2009, when almost everyone does.

The newspaper asks: Banning cellphone use? Why aren't the Potomac nannies going after Starbucks sippers and Big Mac munchers instead? Why not prosecute women who put on their makeup while on the road and men who shave? Shouldn't combing while driving be outlawed as well?

Righto. Flossing, too. Nose-picking. Reading Proust.