I've had more near misses in my car caused by distractions from other people physically inside the car than when I'm physically alone - that includes all forms

I've had more near misses in my car caused by distractions from other people physically inside the car than when I'm physically alone - that includes all forms of social interaction via a mobile device. To count the accidents I've been involved in or had near misses, virtually all of them have been caused by someone in my vehicle causing me take my eyes off the road at just the wrong moment - because instinct can cause you to react badly at just the wrong time and boom! However, a cell phone ringing or an email/text coming in has never caused me to think "Holy shit, I must check who that is right now this second, forget that the guy 25 feet in front of me just hit his brakes hard. I'll figure that out in a minute!" Of course, I do realize that there are accidents caused by texting/emailing and driving at the same time, and as such, I do think it should be banned everywhere. When you're driving, your one and only concern should be what's going on around your vehicle. Should we ban talking to your passengers in your car too? Perhaps. While we're at it, could we also ban our kids from fighting in the back seat and bothering us with "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy! Can I have a cookie?" Would such a ban be realistic? No, of course it wouldn't. If you could, would it significantly reduce the number of accidents on our roads? If my own experience is anything to go by, it most certainly would. All we can do is assess crash statistics, ban those activities that can reasonably be banned where it would reduce in a reduction in those statistics. Is it reasonable to ban the use of cell phones and all forms of mobile communication while driving? Absolutely. We used to drive all the time without phones in the car. We used to leave our houses without the ability to communicate at all until we got back to a land line. I think in extenuating circumstances, it can be overlooked, but if the statistics show that mobile device usage behind the wheel of a car results in accidents, we can easily go back to not using them when we're behind the wheel of the car. Will we? I'd say it's unlikely given the number of drivers I passed this morning, still holding their cell phones to their ears - despite this behaviour being banned in this province since 2010, with fines as heavy as $1,000 and 3 demerit points. It's easy to say "You know what the most distracting thing is...?" but honestly, you can't remove all distracting things. All you can do is remove as many of them as you can reasonably remove and do your best to mitigate the risk of the remainder. I do think that having my nav and my speedometer on the HUD would be far better though.