Should cell phone usage while driving be banned?

It has been estimated that about six percent of accidents each year are caused by cell phone usage. This figure is appalling. I have heard so many stories in the media about accidents caused by texting and talking on cell phones. Your reaction time when your on the phone is much slower than when your totally focused on the road. It is now illegal in many cities to text while driving but this law doesn't seem to really be enforced. I haven't heard of any tickets being written for this or seen anything else about it on the news. I feel that if it's absolutely necessary to call someone or text them the best thing to do would be to pull over at a gas station or off the road and do so. I know that many cities are working on trying to ban cell phone usage while driving and I think that it would be for the best. If police enforcement were stricter about this texting law that is in place in many cities people would be a little more cautious about texting while driving. A few years back I heard of a group of girls from Tennessee that got in an accident while leaving a sporting event they were cheering at. One girl survived of the four and it was discovered that the driver was texting while driving. It's just sickening that innocent lives were lost because of a simple text message that could have been sent at a later time other than when the girl was behind the wheel. I think that accident along with many others is what triggered the law against texting in the Memphis area to be put in place. I have also heard people say that texting while driving is the equivalent to driving drunk. Your eyes are not on the road and you have no way of preventing an accident because you don't have a clue whats going on around you. If your texting your reaction time is much slower than if you were paying attention, just like when someone is intoxicated their reaction time is slow. Society really needs to step back and see what a threat cell phone usage is to everyone. Not just to those doing it but the innocent drivers around them just trying to get to work or school. I think their needs to be more advertisement done to spread the word on how dangerous it really is. If people were to stop cell phone usage while driving so many accidents each year would be prevented and lives would be saved. Last November someone that is close to my family got hit at an intersection at highway 64 and Canada road. Her car was totalled and she was in critical condition for many weeks. They weren't sure if she would be able to keep one of her legs and her pelvis was crushed along with many other broken bones throughout her body. The lady that hit her was talking on her cell phone not paying a bit of attention to the road. Luckily the lady that was hit survived but missed Christmas with her family because she was still in the hospital. This very accident really opened my eyes to how serious this issue is. You don't really realize how serious it is until someone you are close to comes close to losing their lives or loses their lives because of someone being careless and doing something to hinder them from focusing all attention on the road. I hope that by reading this everyone will think twice next time before texting or talking on the phone while behind the wheel. We can make a difference.