You can tell that in the last 10 years, the mobile phones have killed so many people all over the world because there are many people in the traffic thinking that they are the best drivers in the town and nothing bad can happen to them but it's enough to make one mistake to kill or even injure yourself, the passengers in your car or the other people on the street or on the sideways. Besides that, there are also so many laws in different countries or states and the fees are getting bigger and bigger. At the same time, it's not one of those laws where the police officers are ignoring like wearing the seatbelt even though I consider that's very important as well. There are many police officers on the streets of so many countries "hunting" people that use their phones while driving at the same time. So, using a cell phone while driving is extremely dangerous for several reasons.
Another weird side of this problem is that many people are respecting most of these laws while they drive their own car in the city they live but when they go on a trip, it's like they forget about all of those laws, they feel like gods and that's when accidents happen; all of these while driving a rental car so beside the risk you are taking, you are also exposed to certain fees in the state where you are driving and you may also have to pay the damages to the auto rental company you rented the car from. As an example, when you get into your rented car, you want to get to the hotel as fast as possible to save time so while driving, you might set the GPS to the hotel's adress or you are talking to your boss about the business meeting you are driving to. Accidents can also happen just by changing a song on your car's MP3 player - I almost got myself into an accident by searching a song on my car's MP3 player, just because I didn't keep my eyes on the road for a couple of seconds.
Whenever you rent a car and you know you can't avoid talking on the phone while driving, just make sure your car has Bluetooth so you could do both things: driving and talking on the phone without putting anyone in danger.