The National Safety Council is calling for a total ban on using cell phones while driving including using hands free devises saying the practice is clearly dangerous and leads to fatalities.

Janet Froetscher, president and chief executive officer of the non-profit group said, "It's time to take the cell phone away. Studies show that driving while talking on a cell phone is extremely dangerous and puts drivers at a four times greater risk of a crash."

Currently no state bans total cell phone use while driving though California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington and the District of Columbia ban the use of hand-held cell phones behind the wheel. Novice drivers are banned or restricted by 17 states from using the cell phone while driving.

The group is calling for a ban on the use of a hands free device quoting studies which have shown that these do not make it any safer to talk on the cell phone while driving as the driver tends to get more distracted while using a phone or speaker than while talking to a live passenger.

Dave Strayer of the University of Utah and colleagues showed that cell phone usage even with a hands free devise tended to drift out of their lanes and missed their exits more than passengers conversing with a live passenger. They also said that drivers who used mobile phones were as impaired as drivers who were legally drunk.

"Public awareness and the laws haven't caught up with what the scientists are telling us," Froetscher said. "There is no dispute that driving while talking on your cell phone, or texting while driving, is dangerous." The council is said to have examined more than 50 scientific studies before reaching its decision

A study from the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis estimates that 6% of vehicle crashes which result in about 2,600 deaths and 12,000 serious injuries in a year in the United States.

"It's not just what you're doing with your hands - it's that your head is in the conversation and so your eyes are not on the road," Froetscher said. "When you're on a call, even if both hands are on the wheel, your head is in the call, and not on your driving," Froetscher said. "Unlike the passenger sitting next to you, the person on the other end of the call is oblivious to your driving conditions. The passenger provides another pair of eyes on the road."

The group said it planned on calling governors and state legislators and ask them to ban all use of cell phones while driving. "We have been through this before with seatbelts, with drunk driving. We do research. When the research demonstrates that something is very dangerous and we can save lives, we educate the public about it. We educate legislators about it," Froetscher said.

John Ulczycki, a spokesman for the group said, "Some people suggest and you might hear the argument that there might be a lot of things that are distracting in a vehicle and why are you picking on a cell phone?" He said as per data from the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry, there are 270 million wireless telephone subscribers in the United States, and more than 80 percent admit to using a cell phone while driving. "There are over 100 million people engaged in this behavior," Ulczycki said.

"There may be other things that people do in their cars that are more dangerous than talking on cell phones. I think one of the most dangerous thing people do is turn around in their seats. But we don't have 100 million people doing that regularly for hours a day."

John Walls, vice president of CTIA-The Wireless Association, a cell phone trade group said, "We think that you can sensibly and safely use a cell phone to make a brief call."

Council officials said they would try to push the ban with Congress and the Governors Highway Safety Association and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which is funded by auto insurers, said enforcing a ban would be difficult.