California tells drivers: Drop your mobile, dude

This week California will try to wrest cell phones from the hands of drivers, telling everyone from movie starlets and dot-com millionaires to surfers and soccer moms that conversations behind the wheel must be on a headset.

Several US states and some two dozen countries around the world already have restrictions on mobile phones while driving but now such a law has come to California - where the car is king and much of life is spent on the famously snarled freeways.

Californians interviewed mostly supported the law requiring hands-free phones in cars and outlawing cell phones entirely for drivers under 18, which takes effect tomorrow - though they were puzzled by a loophole that allows seemingly more dangerous text messaging.