Whether the pending state ban on holding a phone to your ear while driving is strong enough or enforceable enough isn’t really the point. For now, it’s enough that it will make people think twice about a potentially deadly practice.

Some have criticized the Legislature’s decision to make it only a secondary offense, meaning police will have to catch violators doing something else illegal before citing them for it. Others complain that cell phones are being unfairly singled out, that there aren’t specific laws against driving and, say, shaving.

We think lawmakers have taken a reasonable and responsible step just by raising public awareness. Even if few citations are issued after the new restriction kicks in the middle of next year (presuming the governor signs it into law), many drivers will be more inclined to pull over before making a non-emergency call.

Wireless phones have been singled out because of how they’ve proliferated. Just about everyone, it seems, has one. For many, they’re practically surgical attachments. Anecdotal evidence of their power to distract when driving is abundant, especially among police. The Washington State Patrol supported the legislation, believing it will help prevent accidents.

We suspect most citizens support it, too, because no one wants to get rammed or forced off the freeway by a driver who’s paying more attention to a phone conversation than getting to their destination safely. In a poll of Washington drivers conducted recently for PEMCO Insurance, 85 percent said that talking on a phone while driving should be legal only with a hands-free device, or made illegal altogether.

The legislation would leave driving while using a hands-free phone device legal. Emergency calls are also exempted. It’s just when you hold the phone to your ear that you’ve crossed the line.

It should go without saying that having only one hand available to steer, shift, signal or turn on the windshield wipers for an extended length of time is not the stuff of safe driving. Neither is operating a vehicle while reading a novel or doing something else that’s blatantly unsafe. That’s already illegal.

Some fine tuning of this law probably will be in order in two or three years. By then, we’ll have an idea of how well it’s working, and we’ll have more data from other states with similar laws. Perhaps it will go the way of Washington’s seat-belt law and become a primary offense.

For now, if it prompts some folks to hold off on that call until they’ve stopped the car, it’s a safety incentive worth having on the books.