Can you hear me now?

A city near Dallas wants to be the first in the state to ban drivers from talking on cell phones while passing through school zones.

Two words: Won’t work.

Sure, it may garner some fines for Highland Park, but the ritzy town isn’t short of cash.

City Council members and state legislators all over should accept a transformation that has spread over this country in the past few years like a sunrise.

Cell phones are here to stay. Almost everybody has one, and we yak on them all the time. Even in our cars.

In theory, it’s not supposed to be safe, and I wouldn’t say it makes you a better driver. But it doesn’t necessarily make you a worse driver.

If you’re on a straight stretch of road with no traffic signals, you can probably gab away without waking up in the emergency room.

In other situations, you should react accordingly. But then, you’re always supposed to react accordingly to rain, stop signs, school zones, etc.

Even the claim that hands-free units are “safe” is shaky. Even with your hands on the wheel in the “10 o’clock and 2 o’clock” positions recommended in driver's ed, you’re still not focusing 100 percent on the road.

At least part of your brain is focused on the latest news about Aunt Sue’s baby or whether you should get milk on the way home or how much A-Rod can rake in as a free agent.

And unless your “hands-free” unit can dial numbers or hang up without you touching it, it really isn’t “hands-free,” now is it?

I don’t know what the answer is. If some moron plowed into me while he was blathering on a cell phone, I’d be ticked off. If I lived, that is.

But cell phones are not going away, and people will talk on them while they are driving.

Unless someone invents a jamming device that turns them to static on roads, we have to deal with that reality.