Not long ago, driving on Interstate 95, I made the effort to pass an SUV in front of me that was weaving and erratically changing speeds.

It seemed like a good idea to get away.

As I made my way around this lane drifter, I looked over to see the driver huddled over the steering wheel, cellphone up to the ear. She threw me a dirty look as I passed, possibly because I was distracting her from her phone call.

Of course I would have liked to deploy my new invention, the cellphone zapper, which, when pointed in the direction of distracted drivers on the phone, would send an electric charge through the handset, enough to make them drop it.

Alas, this is one of those inventions still in the development phase. So is the one that would make politicians speak in increasingly high-pitched tones, the further they stray from the truth.

Meanwhile, I would enthusiastically support politicians who would advocate to increase fines for texting and cellphone use by drivers.

It is not just annoying to see drivers all around us not paying sufficient attention to the business at hand. It is increasingly clear from the statistics that it is a terrible scourge of the highways that is claiming lives and getting worse, not better.

Indeed, it is now known that more young people die in accidents caused by texting than caused by alcohol.

And yet we still treat this harmful practice lightly, akin to speeding or making a bad turn. I think the fines in many places are worse for parking in a handicapped space than risking other people's lives by texting on the highway.

We all need to take it more seriously — the way, for instance, that we came together as a society and decided we were no longer going to tolerate people drinking too much and driving.

Sure, there were laws a long time ago about drinking and driving. But they were lightly enforced and the penalties were low.

Think back to those old Doris Day movies when people were drinking cocktails in convertibles, speeding with the top down, not a seat belt in sight. We know more now.

In much the same way, I think we have come to tolerate the dangers of texting and cellphone conversations while driving. We've all done it, quickly and safely, of course, we tell ourselves.

It's hard to imagine someone today slugging back a couple of big drinks in a public place, climbing behind the wheel and expecting no one to say anything. Yet many feel no hesitation in picking up a ringing or vibrating phone while driving at highway speeds.

You might even argue that the drunken and impaired driver is maybe at least concentrating on what they're doing behind the wheel, even if they are not able to do it very well.

What's too high a fine for texting while driving?

Maybe the $10,000 for the first offense that made some headlines out of Alaska was a bit too high. I'm not sure, either, whether the practice in some of Scandinavia — to peg highway fines to income to make sure they hurt — would work here.

But I do think Connecticut's sliding scale, $150 for first offense and $500 for third and later offenses, is way too low, even though it is at the higher end of the national scale.

Here's a chance for Gov. Malloy to outdo Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, where a first offense draws a fine of $400.

Obviously, the fine needs to be so painful and intolerable that no driver would risk it.

Our tough drunken driving laws now do that. I suspect most drunken drivers go ahead and get behind the wheel, knowing the terrible consequences of getting caught, because they are, well, impaired and not thinking clearly of what could happen to them.

The other problem with texting, as highway offenses go, is that it is hard for law enforcement to detect. It may be difficult for a driver to slow down once they see a cruiser up ahead with the radar gun showing. But it is pretty easy to put the phone down.

One improvement, in addition to bigger fines, would be enforcement of provisions in the law to confiscate the phone.

Maybe the threat of a license suspension for the first or second offense would make people think twice before picking up a ringing phone.

There should be a sharp and clear choice between the very easy thing — pulling over — and the terrible, unthinkable consequences of breaking this law.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct