The National Safety Council has started a campaign to ban all use of mobile phones while driving on Sunday. What's new? Well, the council has also proposed that the ban of the hands-free devices too, because studies have shown they do not make it any safer to talk on the telephone while driving.

Many states have laws requiring the use of a hands-free device while driving and using a cellphone, but several recent studies have unfortunately shown that drivers are far more distracted when speaking on a mobile phone, even with a speaker or headset, than talking to a live passenger. The latest study proved that drivers using a hands-free device drifted out of their lanes and missed exists more frequently than drivers talking to a passenger.

Furthermore, a study from the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis estimates that cellphone use while driving contributes to 6 percent of crashes. The National Safety Council has also been behind many states' decision to enforce seatbelt laws.

Data from the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry shows that there are 270 million wireless telephone subscribers in the US, and more than 80 percent admitted using a cellphone while driving. Disturbing as it sounds, more than 40 percents of those surveyed said they had been hit or almost hit by another driver who was talking on a cell phone.

Some, however, have argued that there are a million things distracting a driver, so why pick on the cellphone? The experts admitted there may be other things that people do in their cars that are more dangerous than talking on cellphones, but we can hardly find 100 million people doing that regularly for hours a day, so cellphone talking should clearly be banned.