I see this happening all the time. There is no excuse to be talking & driving at the same time. You know the law, or at this point you SHOULD know it. It clearly states in the drivers manual that as a driver it is your responsibility to know the rules of the road.
As for being distracted, I have to say that the worst incident i have witnessed was on a major highway, suddenly we started hearing honking, people were slamming of their brakes swerving. we didn’t know what was happening till we were behind a car going 30-35 miles TOPS, (in a 65 mph zone) he was swerving all over from lane to lane, As we passed him we saw that he had a huge newspaper on his steering wheel and he was reading it while driving! We called the cops, and they told us that they have been getting tons of calls about this driver, and they were sending a car out to look for him. How Crazy is that??