COLUMBIA -- When I heard that school buses might come with a hotline number inside for kids to tattle on their driver for using a cell phone, my first thought was: Bus drivers are going to LOVE this.

Then I wondered, are texting school bus drivers actually a problem? Nah, couldn't be. That's just too outrageous. 

More likely, if we got these 800 numbers inside school buses (as some are proposing), some kid would probably dial it because no-nonsense Bus Driver told him for the fifth time to stay in his seat and stop flicking boogers.

Then I realized I'm pretty much in denial about how pervasive texting and cell-phone use behind the wheel is. What seems bat-shit insane - texting while driving a school bus - probably has been done and may be happening somewhere this exact second.

So I called up the head of transportation for North Carolina's education department. For the last year-and-a-half, they've had hotline numbers prominently displayed in school buses at three to four districts, said Derek Graham.

As a result, his office in Raleigh has received 60 calls. About half were complaining about a cell-phone-weilding bus driver, and half were reporting the bus driver for not wearling a seat belt.

"There’s the occasional call, ‘My bus driver’s mean to me,’ or somebody, a motorist who’s gotten ahold of the number, (who says) ‘There was a bus that was driving inappropriately or cut me off in traffic,’” said Graham.

Given the slim volume of calls to the hotline, Graham said there appears to be little, if any, abuse.

South Carolina appears to be headed in the same direction, with possible amendments to H. 4282, a bill to restrict the public from texting or talking on a handheld cell while driving.

Here's how Donald Tudor, head of transportation for the S.C. Department of Education, envisions the on-board hotline for kids: "All we’ll do is take the complain and forward it to the school district, and the school district will bring it to the bus drivers attention, and then either they’re right or they’re wrong.”

Readers, what do you think? Do we need our kids to enforce state laws inside school buses?

Is there room for abuse at the hands of a vengeful teenager who's not used to gruff, bus-driver-style discipline?

Should the tender feelings of bus drivers be the least of our concerns next to the safety of our children? Any full-time job with benefits is something of a luxury today, is it not? And every workplace has its annoyances and indignities.

Still, if we can't trust a school bus driver not to do something as ludicrous as text and drive with a bus full of children, can we trust them to be anywhere near our children at all?

Or do I need to open my eyes to the fact that everyone is on the phone - doing any number of activities - at every possible moment behind the wheel, be a school bus, garbage truck, minivan or Mini Cooper? And we won't stop until we've had an accident to prove to ourselves that it's dangerous?