I have a very old car--17 years old to be exact.  It might as well be the 19th century when it comes to the navigation knobs. In my car there are no whisper touch digital controls, no GPS on the big screen dashboard, no audio stream pumping out music, talk, and entertainment channels, no apparatus linking my phone to the car.

There is nothing that I can do in my car without paying attention.   It’s 4 wheel driving mindfulness. I know if I reach over to change the radio channel or pop in a CD I have to look and reach. So I don’t and that’s a good thing. My extra effort has prevented me from joining the ever-widening community of distracted drivers.

Especially drivers who text while driving. Massachusetts made texting while driving illegal in 2010. In fact, 46 states as well as DC, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands ban text messaging for drivers.

Have these bans made a difference? A 2014 extensive  study published by the American Journal of Public Health indicates that they do. About a 3 percent reduction in deaths. Although accidents with injuries are up. What’s really scary is that –--660 thousand US drivers are using handheld devices while driving during the day. The Department of Transportation reports that when you text on a handheld your eyes are off the road for five seconds. And traveling at 55mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field wearing a blindfold.

The heavy amount of texting and driving prompted 14 states to mandate hands free devices. There’s no concrete evidence that hands free is any less distracting, though I can’t see how it wouldn’t be.

Rhode Island has a hands free law, as do Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. Now there is legislation under consideration at the Statehouse, which could make Massachusetts hands free. But so far, both House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Governor Charlie Baker have not said if they would support a hands-free bill. Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, on the other hand, is a long time supporter. Rosenberg told the Statehouse News Service, he wanted a new law to  “Save me from myself.”

And maybe save the rest of us, too. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says without a doubt distracted drivers kill. 3 years ago a court convicted a local teenager of ‘motor vehicle homicide by texting’. His car crossed a divider, striking and killing a truck driver. He got 2 years in jail and his license was taken away for 15 years.

I don’t expect that any law can immediately halt driver’s texting habits, but it can begin to put the brakes on the numbers of out of control distractions. It makes no sense for Massachusetts to be a place where distracted drivers have more leeway to be distracted. Nanny state reputation or no, hands free should be the standard on our streets.