There are so many causes of death, but at what level do they reach a stage where legislation (and enforcement of that legislation) is required?
How do we actually measure that danger and as a result of that measurement decide on the level of censure?
One popular comparison with phone use is that it is an "equivalent" to drink driving. Sources differ, but a common claim is that using a phone slows reaction two to three times more than driving at the drink drive limit.
Should phones therefore be considered more dangerous than drink driving because the impairment, is far greater for phone use or on the other hand, do we consider that in a year (2012) 280 people were killed by drink driving and 17 caused by phone use and consider the outcome and that drink driving is more dangerous
(As always there is an issue with accuracy. "In Car distraction" can be anything from talking to a passenger, dealing with a screaming child, eating, smoking, changing a CD or altering a Satnav as well as the use of phones. This skews the statistics as some of these are going to add to the number attributable to phones as they were not specifically recorded as such. So the number of deaths caused by phones could be greater)