HELENA (LEE)--People who like to talk on their cell phones while driving can take heart: The Montana Legislature looks unlikely to place any restrictions on them during the 2007 session.

After pitching her cell-phone ban proposal to the Senate Highways and Transportation Committee Tuesday, Sen. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, acknowledged the bill's prospects were dim.

"I do sense that this bill will not move out of this committee," she said.

The Senate panel took no action on the bill Tuesday. But three other bills to place restrictions of the use of cell phones in vehicles have been tabled in House committees, effectively killing them.

Bob Gilbert, a lobbyist representing tow truck and school bus contractors associations, already testified against the other measures and said Kaufmann's Senate Bill 441 "is the worst of a series of bad bills."

He said the bill would ban not only cell phones but two-way radios and CB radios used by truck drivers, school bus drivers and other commercial drivers. Although the bill included exemptions for law enforcement and emergency services personnel, Gilbert said it would greatly hinder thousands of businesses across the state.

Kaufmann, in explaining the intent of her bill, began by confessing that she sometimes uses a cell phone while driving. After researching the issue, she said, she believes she should no more talk on the phone behind the wheel than drive after drinking. She said some studies have shown that a person talking on a cell phone is as impaired as someone driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, the legal threshold in Montana.

She also decided not to exempt hands-free phone systems, which one of the House bills did.

"It's not a question of where your hands are. It's where your brain is," she said.

Talking to someone by phone is inherently different from listening to the radio or a book on tape or talking to someone in the car, she said, because it takes people's concentration away from the road.

Two residents spoke in favor of the bill, as did Montana Highway Patrol Capt. Butch Huseby, who said the patrol recorded 101 crashes in 2005 that were directly related to cell phone use by drivers.

"This would certainly help us," he said of Kaufmann's bill.

Six other speakers, representing logging companies, wireless phone companies, truckers and General Motors, joined Gilbert in panning the bill as unreasonably broad. Aimee Grmoljez, a lobbyist for Verizon Wireless, said drivers apply makeup, read or even type on computers - all bad distractions.

She said Verizon realizes cell phones can be a distraction, too, but that a variety of hands-free devices cause almost no distraction at all. Margaret Morgan, a lobbyist for Alltel Communications, said New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have all banned cell phones while driving, but no data show the bans are effective in reducing accidents.

Under questioning by Sen. Jesse Laslovich, D-Anaconda, a member of the committee, Gilbert said an amendment exempting two-way radios and CBs "would soften my opposition considerably."

But Kaufmann said she wasn't sure she'd agree to such an amendment. It would be difficult to ban cell phone conversations by residents and then allow people driving commercial vehicles to conduct the same sorts of conversations via two-way radio, she said.

Laslovich also questioned Kaufmann, after admitting that he loved to talk on his cell phone in the car, as it tended to shorten long trips. Kaufmann chided him, saying it "was not very wise" to do so.

Committee members had a good laugh when she told Laslovich, who is 26, that talking on a cell phone while driving is especially unwise "when you combine this with youth."

Earlier in the meeting, the committee heard from Sen. Kim Gillan, D-Billings, whose SB449 would require the state to gradually increase the fuel efficiency of the vehicles in its motor pool.

It would require the Department of Transportation to work with state agencies and to make sure each agency's fleet exceeds federal fuel-efficiency standards by 105 percent beginning in 2009, rising to 120 percent of the standard by 2012. That federal standard has been set at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1990.

No one spoke in opposition to the bill, which drew four supporters.