I don't think it's quite fair to be totally harsh on the legislators not predicting modern smartphone complexity.
If you ban it completely you'd also ban using GPS/Maps/Sat Nav apps.
I don't know exactly when the previous law came into effect, but I remember the Nokia 3310 (released 2000) had games on it already.
> If you ban it completely you'd also ban using GPS/Maps/Sat Nav apps.
Yeah, hence I wrote about excepting navigational purposes in my comment.
iOS also switches into driving focus mode which turns all the other distractions off: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208090
The legislation is perfectly good.
Using Siri is more dangerous than texting. The below linked research (and others) found that using Siri raises the reaction time 36%. That is 1% worse than texting! For comparison, driving at the drink-drive limit (UK) is 12%. So you are doing yourself a big disservice by using Siri and thinking you are safe(r).
https://www.iamroadsmart.com/campaign-pages/end-customer-cam...
Pretty simple.
If you need to read a map, pull over, stop the vehicle, and read the map.
Considering lots of people place their phone/nav device on the windshield and block enough sight to hide a schoolbus in their direct view I don't think this actually matters all that much.