I read this Dec. 6 story from the New York Times with great interest. It's about cell phones and people who market cell phones and whether cell phone companies should be promoting the ease and efficiency of a cell phone or whether they should be issuing warning about using a cell phone, or any mobile device, while driving.

What I think we should be doing is educating people about personal responsibility. Companies are in business to sell products. What people do with those products after purchase is a matter of personal responsibility. I will state here that I no longer have a cell phone because I could not justify the cost, although the plan I had was not a huge cost.

I  don't know what makes a person think that it's OK to immediately get on the phone after getting behind the wheel. It's learned behavior, like smoking after a drink or even smoking while driving (of which I am guilty).

Martin Cooper, who developed the first portable cellphone, recalled testifying before a Michigan state commission about the risks of talking on a phone while driving.

Common sense, said Mr. Cooper, a Motorola engineer, dictated that drivers keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

Commission members asked Mr. Cooper what could be done about risks posed by these early mobile phones.

“There should be a lock on the dial,” he said he had testified, “so that you couldn’t dial while driving.”

It was the early 1960s.

There have always been things that distract a driver - eating, children in the back seat, tuning the radio, talking to passengers, digging for sunglasses or change - it is the nature of the beast. What's the difference now?

The difference now is that there is an industry that can be blamed.