Having had my own close encounters with texting/emailing/calling/not-paying-attention-to-your-4-ton-urban-assault-vehicle drivers, I'd give almost anything for a solution to this issue, but I have to agree that disabling a phone merely becuase it is moving faster than a certain speed is not a viable solution.
A couple of thoughts:
How do we decide what a safe speed to be moving is? 15mph is plenty fast enough to kill, so do we set the arbitrary limit at 10 or 5mph, or do we say you have to be absolutely stationary? How long does it stay blocked after it drops below a certain speed -- think stop and go traffic -- This is as dangerous a place as there is in my opinion and getting caught between 2 SUVs coliding at 5 miles an hour doesn't seem like something you walk away from.
What features are disabled? Texting and non-handsfree talking? Web Browsing & email? Navigation, games? I suppose you would have to disable all functions of the phone, because really, what features aren't distracting when driving?
So now my phone is nearly completely disabled unless I am sitting still, so whenever I'm a passenger, whether it be in a car, on a bus, train, ferry or even elevator my device is disabled. Not a very workable solution at all in my mind.
Instead of that, I am all for better & recurrent driver training, mandatory cell phone checks after accidents, significantly higher fines for disobedience and serious consequences for chronic offenders. I have suggested in the past that if we treated distracted driving similar to DUI, with similar consequences, more people would think twice before pulling out their phone or other gadget.
Until we treat distracted driving like the danger that it is and punish the offenders appropriately, we'll never solve it.
--Sky
