Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.
在过去的七年里，大多数州都禁止司机发短信，公共服务运动也尝试了各种方法来说服人们在开车时放下手机。
Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.
然而，无论以何种标准衡量，这个问题似乎正在变得更糟。美国人仍然在开车时发短信，使用社交网络和拍照。多年来一直下降的道路事故现在却急剧上升。
That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted driving was "only increasing, unfortunately."
这在一定程度上是因为人们开车越来越多，但美国国家公路交通安全管理局局长马克·罗斯金德表示，很不幸，分心驾驶“一直在增加”。
"Big change requires big ideas." he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.
他在上个月的一次演讲中说，“大变革需要大创意”大概是指改善道路安全的必要性。因此，为了改变一种明显的现代行为，立法者和公共健康专家正在回溯到一种旧的方案：把分心驾驶当作酒后驾驶来对待。
An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York's hands-free driving laws.
纽约立法者提出的一个想法是给警察配备一种叫做Textalyzer的新设备。它的工作原理：到达车祸现场的警官可以索要司机的电话，并使用Textalyzer在运行系统中查看最近的活动。这项技术可以确定司机是否刚刚发了短信、发了电子邮件或做了纽约免提驾驶法不允许的其他事情。
"We need something on the books that can change people's behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state's 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, "people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."
费利克斯·W·奥尔蒂斯说：“我们需要一些措施能够改变人们行为”，他曾推动该州2001年禁止司机使用手持设备。他说，如果Textalyzer法案成为法律，“人们将更害怕使用手机”。
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