Easy compromise: Allow texting while stopped. Most reasonable people get their texting done at the stoplight. It is not particularly dangerous to text while at a stoplight. Annoying to others but unlikely to cause a crash. Since you are less likely to get caught texting on the move, the law creates an incentive for the worst behavior. If you are stopped, you are not really driving in any non-legalese meaning of the word. It wasn't legally driving before the MADD folks had the laws changed to bust the guy sleeping it off in the bar parking lot.