For the first time? Seriously? I think just about everyone I know over the age of 16 would deserve to be in jail then, because pretty much everyone I know who drives has talked on their phone while in the car at least once. And most have texted while on the road at least once.
I don't text while the car is in motion, but I don't see a problem texting at stoplights, especially if there are cars in front of me -- long before it's time for me to take my foot off the brake, I've put the phone down. (I fail to see how this is any more dangerous than bending down to find my water bottle that fell out of the cupholder -- or do I get 35.7 years for that?) If I get called while driving, I tend to hang up within a minute -- I've actually found talking on the phone to be more distracting than texting, and I really dislike it. If you're driving on the wrong side of the road because you're texting, then that's reckless driving and you should get in a lot of trouble for it. But treating talking on the phone as serious as rape or murder is ridiculous -- I hope you're exaggerating by a hundredfold.
Two problems come to mind: First, it doesn't address texting. (Although I'm aware of the literature on that, and I know it's generally been found to have similar effects) Second, when you're drunk, you're pretty much drunk the whole drive home, unless you're driving across the country. This allows for a much larger window for distraction, and a higher probability of causing an accident overall than if you spend 30 seconds texting or two minutes on the phone. Unless you start talking on the phone the minute you start the car and don't stop until you pull into your driveway, it's not as dangerous as driving drunk, because you aren't distracted for the same amount of time. Now, that doesn't mean it's OK, or advisable under general circumstances -- but let's not pretend that they're equally harmful behaviors, when they are not.
Hands free devices really don't help much. To be honest, I'd rather have the person in the car next to me tap out a text at a stoplight than driving 65 down the road while talking on a hands free device. And you certainly can turn on your blinkers while holding a cell phone with the other hand. At least in the States, and in my car, the stick to control the turn signals is on the left side of the steering wheel -- if I hold the phone with my right hand, I can turn the wheel and turn on the turn signal with my left. (Now, I really don't do this, because I can actually feel distracted from the road and I don't like it. But it is certainly possible without it being anymore dangerous than talking on the phone already is)
