OVER IN POPULAR MECHANICS, I explain why the NTSB’s effort to ban even hands-free cellphones in cars is wrong. (Bumped).

UPDATE: Reader Todd Ludeke writes:

Perhaps you should add a link to the following statistics on highway fatalities to your post on the proposed cell phone ban.

As this chart shows, from 1990 to 2009, the number of fatalities per 100 million miles driven has declined from 2.1 to 1.1. While other factors obviously impact this decline, it is difficult to imagine that – were cell phones the great threat the NTSB suggests – fatalities per mile would decline nearly 50% in the same period that cell phone use went from rare (less than 15% cell phone penetration in 1996, let alone 1990) to ubiquitous.

Indeed. There’s also this recent study suggesting that a cellphone ban doesn’t prevent accidents.