A Northern California TV station reports that some area parents are buying their teenagers vehicles with stick shifts in order to keep the kids’ hands off cell phones.

Sacramento News10 interviewed a 17-year-old who says that while many of her friends text and drive, “With a stick shift, I can’t really check my phone,” she said. Her parents bought her a Honda Civic.

Stick shifts have largely disappeared in the U.S., with about 5.5 percent of current sales, the report says. (In 1985, the percentage of stick shifts was about 23 percent.) Manual transmissions remain common overseas, however.

About time.

Proponents and foes of laws against distracted driving agree, oddly enough, that the watery prohibitions being dispensed by many states are of little use and make little sense. The legislative “compromise” of saddling distracted driving laws with secondary enforcement is a joke. What if speeding tickets were only handed out if drivers actually caused a wreck, injury or death?

Asking law officers to figure out whether a cell phone user is dialing a number or typing a message borders on absurdity. Yet that’s the task in states that banned texting but continue to allow handheld cell phone use. The result: Few law enforcement agencies in these states bother to write tickets for text messaging, the most dangerous of distracted driving behaviors.

The NTSB only makes recommendations. Even if it had rule-making authority (as does the U.S. DOT), it could not tell states what to do with their traffic laws.

The feds, however, have a way of getting their way, using the carrot or the stick. Federal grants were used to encourage states to use primary enforcement on seat belt laws. States that failed to raise their drinking ages to 21 complied after facing disastrous cutoffs of federal highway funding. A plan to use incentive grants for electronic distracted driving laws is making its way through Congress, although prospects remain uncertain.

One lawmaker said the other day that a complete cell phone ban would be “the most ignored law since Prohibition.” Maybe so, but most Americans obey the law because it’s the law. Young drivers are taught the law. Good cops and judges enforce the law.

NTSB chairwoman Deborah Hersman (pictured) points out that the increasing sophistication of smartphones — personal computers, really — makes the dangers more acute than even a few years ago. The debate about much more than simple phone calls.

“This is a difficult recommendation, but it’s the right recommendation and it’s time,” Hersman said.

Drivers who choose to be distracted by cell phones and texting devices should pay increasingly severe fines and face loss of their licenses. Those who kill with their arrogant carelessness should be treated as killers under manslaughter laws.

States that fail to enforce their own electronic distracted driving laws, such as Wisconsin, should suffer a graduated loss of federal funds. Dumb and dumber states — notably my birthplace of Florida — that refuse to enact any distracted driving laws must be incentivized and punished. They are in need of adult supervision.

There exists a malignant hypocrisy in the distracted driving debate, with guilty parties on both sides — lawmakers, federal and state agencies, the media, law enforcement, researchers, cell phone companies and automakers, etc. That hypocrisy is acting as if there were myriad subtleties, considerations and courses of action here.

The time for lip service and game-playing grows short, while the list of the dead and wounded grows longer. The NTSB has it right: Ban all non-emergency cell phone use by U.S. drivers.

You may have heard that Oak Park, Ill., is considering a ban on eating while driving. Yes, that and sipping on drinks and putting on makeup and … texting and cell phone use.

“This isn’t government overreach; this is the government protecting people,” said Oak Park village trustee Colette Lueck, who floated the idea in the middle of debate over texting and handheld cell phones.

Actually, that would be government overreach.

Lueck, apparently, is dead serious. And the media has lapped up the story about banning eating while driving.

Critics of electronic distracted driving legislation — those addressing use of wireless communications devices — often cite “putting on make-up” or “eating while driving” as candidates for governmental sanctions. One guy brought up nose-picking.

These critics by and large are not serious. They argue against electronic distracted driving restrictions by summoning up specious dangers.

Last March, this blog reported the following exchange in Maryland’s distracted driving debate, after state Sen. Allan Kittleman playfully proposed a law against eating and while driving.

“You can’t tell me it is more safe to hold some French fries and a Big Mac and Coke than it is to look down and read some text messages,” Kittleman said to the sponsor of an anti-texting bill.

Sen. James Brochin, responded, dryly: “Eating is not a cerebral event. You just do it.”

What’s the harm in a larger debate?

Electronic distracted driving laws send a clear message about clear and present dangers brought on by a technological sea change. Diluting society’s directive that text messaging and operating mobile phones are potentially deadly behaviors can only add to the sickening body count. Young, inexperienced drivers don’t deal well with ambiguity and gray areas.

Newspapers nationwide are not printing obituaries for victims of drivers lost in enjoyment of their Slurpees. Safety experts do not come to high schools to demonstrate to students that they are impaired when changing radio stations. Putting on make-up has never been researched as a dangerous addictive habit.

Well-meaning legislators should focus on electronic distracted driving and leave the everyday inattentive behaviors to police and safety educators.

The current national debate needs to be about texting & talking while behind the wheel. Period.

As with driving, focus is everything.

The usual sights on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles include famous street signs, beautiful sunsets, colorful graffiti — and plenty of law-breaking distracted drivers: SUV owners yakking on cell phones; teens texting away while behind the wheel.

Now there’s “Bubblehead,” a giant Barbarella-like cutie holding up a cell phone whose on-screen message reads: “PLS DNT TXT & DRIVE.”

Los Angeles artist Mike McNeilly created the 13,000-square-foot billboard as part of his continuing series of public service works starring the Bubblehead character, so named because she’s wearing a space helmet — and apparently nothing else. The image brings recollections of Jane Fonda in the 1968 sci-fi sex romp “Barbarella.”

McNeilly, whose street art appears on billboards, buildings, bus-stop benches, construction site walls and the like, has said: “I like to grab someone by the jugular and say, ‘Give me three seconds. Think!’ ”

Previous targets for McNeilly’s do-gooder art include hunger, AIDS (“No Glove, No Love”) and murder.

Via his SkyTag company, McNeilly creates “supergraphics” that cover sides of tall buildings, for commercial and non-commercial promotions. The giant visuals have kept McNeilly in the news, as he tangled with city governments and homeowners groups.

Hurd and another woman were killed, and Hurd’s fiance was seriously injured. The wreck occurred on Florida’s infamous “Bloody 27″ highway. A stretch of the road was renamed in Heather Hurd’s memory.

Her parents became distracted driving activists and went on to help create Heather’s Law (2009) in their home state of Maryland. Florida’s proposed Heather’s Law has been proposed in the Legislature several times, but the state has enacted nothing.

Here’s a candidate for the world’s most brazen distracted driver: British police were in the process of stopping David Secker of Norwich for using a handheld cell phone while driving on a freeway. To their astonishment, the officers then realized that he was texting on another cell phone. The capper: Secker reportedly made the officer wait for him to finish his cell phone call. Sentencing is Aug. 15.

Toronto’s mayor allegedly gave the finger to a citizen who scolded him for using a cell phone while driving. Ottilie Mason said she gave Mayor Rob Ford a thumbs-down signal and he replied with the one-finger salute. Mason’s 6-year-old was in the car. A spokesman told the Toronto Sun that the mayor was indeed cell-phoning, but no flip-off occurred. Mason told the Sun: “I have wondered whether he would have given me the finger if I was a police officer telling him to get off his cell phone.”

“In our world, only bad guys drive distracted,” the narrator says in the fast-moving “Cars 2″ PSA created by the Disney and Pixar in partnership with the Department of Transportation. (video below)

How to become a Disney hero, like Lightning McQueen? “No calling, no texting. Nothing that can take away your focus.”

DOT distracted driving czar Ray LaHood quipped: “I think you’ll agree that ‘Cars 2′s’ Lightning McQueen and Mater make pretty good spokes-vehicles.” They’re not bad at pushing the latest Disney-Pixar film, either: “Cars 2″ debuts June 24. The original took in $461 million dollars at the boxoffice.

The DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration worked with Disney on past PSA campaigns such as the original “Cars,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Enchanted,” Wall-E” and a home video rerelease of “Cinderella.”

Disney is making the video PSA available in about a dozen countries. (text continues)

One Internet commenter wasn’t all that impressed: “Awesome! This should keep my 3-year-old nephew from driving distracted.”

LaHood pleaded guilty to “instilling safe driving behavior among young people from an early age.”

Below find one of the distracted driving video PSAs created by BMW as part of its campaign “Don’t TXT & Drive — When the Engine Starts the Texting Stops.”

The German automaker and Department of Transportation chief Ray LaHood made nice in December, as concerns were mounting over interactive communications systems being placed in vehicles. The latest “Don’t TXT & Drive” campaign grew out of that meeting.

LaHood, meanwhile, gave the Wall Street Journal a juicy quote for its story this week on Internet-based auto gadgets: “There’s absolutely no reason for any person to download their Facebook into the car,” he said.

The BMW campaign features print ads as well. Dealerships will feature printed materials, hang-tags and decals for display in vehicles and showrooms throughout the summer. (text continues … )

Subaru, the other automaker to hear LaHood’s call, bought major TV airtime for its “Baby Driver” PSA, in which a little girl playing in a car morphs into a teen ready for her first solo drive. “Call me — but not when you’re driving,” her protective dad says.

LaHood said of BMW’s campaign: “I am grateful to BMW for their efforts to raise public awareness about distracted driving, and for urging drivers to put down their phones and focus on the road. I hope that other automakers will follow their lead.”

The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority paid for “The Last Word,” which was produced by Dade County-based ad agency Ronin Advertising Group. Kudos all around.

The short film anchors an MDX texting-and-driving pledge campaign, with more than 7,800 signees to date. The pledge goal is 1 million signees.

“What we’ve realized is that many of the campaigns out there focus on the driver’s perspective, said MDX’s Cindy Polo-Serantes. “What we’re trying to show is the aftereffect on one’s family.”

“Leah Propes has phoned me this morning and asked that I share with you what she has now confirmed.

“Lillian (16) was driving home from work and was texting while driving. There was no other car involved, Lillian was not under the influence of anything in her system but the crash happened simply because she took her eyes off of the road to see a text and answer a text. Lillian was texting someone she had just recently met.

“The Propes family asked that each of you, the Tatum High School family of students, faculty and staff take this tragedy of their precious daughter’s death as a screaming message from those who love you “Don’t text while you drive”; don’t text others when you know they are driving.

“We will remember Lillian as a member of the National Honor Society, a student athletic trainer, a yearbook staffer and a member of the One Act Play cast. She is a member of the Class of 2012 and was the only child of Tim and Leah Propes.

“Lillian has been a Tatum Eagle since kindergarten.

“Her body will be cremated and the family is having a private service.

“A memorial service will be held at Tatum High School Thursday, March 31, at 7:00 p.m.”

– Principal Debbie Maxey