Chicago DUI lawyer comments on the Distracted Driving Summit

I've posted here and here about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's planned Distracted Driving Summit. Well say what you will, but the Distracted Driving Summit was to be held in September and by golly the first day of the Summit was yesterday.

From Welcome to the Fast Lane:

To put it plainly, distracted driving is a menace to society. And it seems to be getting worse every year.

This trend distresses me deeply, both on a personal level, and as the nation’s chief executive for transportation safety.

So today, we’re kicking off a two-day summit that’s going to look at this deadly epidemic from every angle.

We’re bringing together top experts in safety, transportation research, regulatory affairs, and law enforcement to help us identify, target, and tackle the fundamental elements of this problem.

We're including a panel of teens and young adults because this obviously affects them, and their perspective and ideas are important to changing the behavior of their peers.

This morning, I met with several men and women who have suffered as a result of accidents caused by distracted driving. These are people, not statistics. And I'm so proud of them for participating in today's summit, sharing their stories, and reminding everyone how much is at stake here, how much can be lost when a driver's attention is distracted for even a second.

Secretary LaHood has the best intentions but you can't put the cat back in the bag. Driving while using a cell phone, for a phone call or to text, is not like wearing a seat belt or drunk driving in my opinion. What do you think?