The national drive includes a new federal website, www.distraction.gov, and a new nonprofit organization called FocusDriven, modeled on Mothers Against Drunk Driving and dedicated to the elimination of cell-phone use by drivers. Each of the group's five board members has lost a loved one to a driver who was distracted by a cell phone.

"2009 will go down in history as the year we built a national consensus on the dangers of texting while driving," said Janet Froetscher, president of the National Safety Council, who spoke at LaHood's news conference in Washington, D.C. "We hope 2010 will be the year that we build a national consensus on the dangers of cell-phone use while driving."

Froetscher cited new Safety Council research estimating that 1.4 million crashes a year are caused by drivers talking on phones, up from the 600,000 crashes a year estimated in a Harvard study from 2003. The number of cell-phone users in the nation has more than doubled since then, to 270 million, she said.

The crash tally translates to one-fourth of all crashes nationwide. In Minnesota, about a quarter of crashes cite distraction as a contributing factor, according to the state's Department of Public Safety.

Jennifer Smith of Texas is president of FocusDriven; her mother was killed in 2008 by a young driver who ran a red light while talking on his phone. She said there is no science showing that hands-free devices are any safer than hand-held phones.

"It's not where your hands are," she said. "It's the conversation. It's where your head is."

Talking to a passenger is "significantly safer than talking on a cell phone for adult drivers," the National Safety Council says, citing a study out of the University of Utah, because passengers can alert the driver to hazards or stop the conversation as necessary.

Harvey Frykman, 69, of Northfield, only carries a cell phone in his car for emergencies but wouldn't support a ban. "It's like killing a fly with an elephant," he said, suggesting instead more education about cell phone use while driving and higher fines for driving while distracted. "There are inattentive drivers, and whether that inattention is because of a phone or because they're peeling a banana, it doesn't matter. It's the driver's behavior and not the tools that he's got," he said.

Frykman said he doesn't object to people talking on a cell phone while driving, provided they are paying attention to the road and using the phone as a communication tool and not to socialize. "I'm more distracted by my wife when she's sitting next to me and she says, 'Oh look at the squirrel' or she says 'Oh,' and I think there's a train coming at me but then she says, 'Look at that pretty dog.'"

'We're on a rampage'

LaHood said the new group and federal website are among the fruit of last fall's first-ever distracted driving summit. He said the federal government will consider financial incentives and penalties to encourage states to pass new restrictions.

"We're not going to sit around, and we're not going to wait around for Congress," LaHood said. "We're moving ahead ... We're on a rampage about this."

Citing research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and Nationwide Insurance, Froetscher said public opinion in support of a total ban is around 50 percent. How much support such a law would have at the Minnesota State Capitol is an open question.

"There'll probably be a move this year to get the issue on the table in preparation for the longer session in 2011," said State Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, who heads the Senate transportation committee.

Minnesota would not want to lose out if any federal funding becomes tied to a cell-phone ban, he said, but "I just don't think that there's enough public sentiment right now to pass the bill in the Legislature and have the governor sign the bill."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty does not support a full ban, said spokesman Brian McClung.

Efforts to impose a ban come as ever-more-complex and Internet-connected features are being developed for new cars. LaHood said his department doesn't have control over Web access in vehicles, but he expressed confidence that auto manufacturers understand the situation.

He said that employees of Ford and Chrysler aren't allowed to use their cell phones while driving on the job. "They're coming along," he said.

The cell phone industry's trade association is officially neutral on outright bans of cellular use by drivers and legislation requiring hands-free devices. "We continue to believe that the key to truly changing people's behavior involves uniform legislation, technology and education," Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association, said Tuesday in a statement.

Jim Foti • 612-673-4491