The Chicago City Council has a message for drivers within city limits: Hands on 10 and 2.

The council soon will consider an ordinance to ban drivers from holding cell phones while they drive. It would have violators pay a $50 fine if caught and a $200 fine if a traffic accident occurred as a result of the cell phone use.

The ban excludes law enforcement officers, emergency vehicle drivers on duty and drivers in their cars but parked.

Exceptions aside, the council does not need to become Chicago drivers’ over-protective parents.

The ban does not seek to prevent drivers from using hand-held devices to carry on conversations. And little evidence exists to suggest that talking on any cell phone device is half as distracting as the nature of the conversation itself.

A 2001 University of Utah study revealed drivers holding cell phones and those using hand-held devices were equally as likely to ignore traffic signals and experience lapses in reaction times.

This asinine ordinance does not address the root of the problem. Nor could any ordinance truly solve the problem.The council cannot reasonably seek to eliminate all distractions.

As Edward Burke (14th Ward), chairman of the finance committee, said, the council would have to ban eating, applying makeup or reading while driving.

While it’s at it, the council might do well to ban incendiary talk radio or merely thinking about excitable topics.

In reality, the council cannot logically expect to ban any or all of these things.

The council might consider going back to the drawing board for this ordinance and throwing away its chalk.