It may be April Fools day, but it’s also the first day of National Distracted Driving month. While we just blogged about the decline in fatal crashes for 2010 to the lowest recorded levels, there are still many traffic safety issues, and distracted driving is one of them.

We all see it every day on the road: people texting, talking, and doing many other things behind the wheel rather than focusing on driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been working to bring this issue to the forefront by increasing awareness and aiding states to enact laws.

In honor of National Distracted Driving month, many states and communities will be stepping up the enforcement of their distracted driving laws. Syracuse, New York, will hold the final wave of the “Phone in one hand, Ticket in the other" pilot campaign to test the effectiveness of high-visibility enforcement for distracted driving from April 7-16.

Currently, nine states and the District of Columbia ban handheld cell phone use and 30 states plus D.C. ban texting behind the wheel. However, Maryland today just turned down a bill to make their handheld cell phone ban a primary offense. It will stay as a secondary offense, which means that police need to pull over a driver for another reason than talking on a cell phone before writing a citation.

This month and all year long, the simple message is to put the phone down and just drive.

See our guide to distracted driving.