Should Daydreaming While Driving Be Illegal?

Since 48 out of 50 states have banned texting while driving, should it also be illegal to...

clean sunglasses?

pick things up off of the floor?

eat?

drink non-alcoholic beverages?

do makeup?

change clothes?

dance violently?

read a book?

answer difficult math questions?

close your eyes?

look at gps?

make out?

memorize a speech?

look at a passenger?

yell at your kids in the back seat?

daydream?

clean the rear-view mirror?

write?

stretch your back?

be extremely emotional?

shave?

(Feel free to continue my list in the comments.)

Driving is a dangerous activity. Anything that distracts a driver from the act of driving has the potential to cause an accident. The longer that distraction lasts and the busier a road is, the more likely an accident is to occur.

Unfortunately, we don't have a crystal ball that will tell us who is going to cause an accident. All we can do is look at what may have distracted a driver who already caused the accident.

Reading is much more distracting than texting. What if you need to familiarize yourself with a few pages from a book while driving? You can make sure to look down for only 2-3 seconds at a time, and always check the road before doing so, but it wouldn't be an easy task.

On the other hand, reading a text is much less time-consuming. I have heard it said that it takes a minimum of 5 seconds of looking away from the road to text. That is a lie. Sending a text is not easy, but if you have the key locations memorized, you barely need to look down at all.

I wouldn't recommend texting while driving as a rule, but I also wouldn't recommend any of the other things mentioned in the above list. Should they all be banned?

Remember the potentialities of passed laws before advocating for them.

Instead...

If we stop mandating auto insurance and hold the instigator of the accident liable, we would no longer need to worry about outlawing potential causes of accidents. People would be responsible for the consequences of their driving instead of  worrying-about-whether-or-not-the-thing-they-are-doing-is-included-in-the-list-of-illegal-driving-activities.

If every driver had to pony up for damage caused, whether monetary or physical, driving safety would become a much more highly regarded aspiration.

In addition to more liberty and fewer police-citizen encounters, the roads would actually be safer.