Much has been made about the woman who, while driving through the Maine Turnpike toll plaza in West Gardiner around July 4, was snagged by police while watching a television show on a laptop computer.

She wasn’t charged with anything, because she didn’t – technically – commit a crime. (Maine has laws against driving while watching television, but not laptops.)

Now lawmakers, law enforcement and prosecutors are making rumbles about tightening laws regarding driving while distracted, probably to prevent another incident in which a driver, who made a horrendous error in judgment, skates through a legal loophole.

While we support crackdowns on questionably sentient decisions such as driving and watching a laptop, trying to further inscribe what is (and what isn’t) “driving while distracted” into Maine statute is likely harder than it looks.

Many definitions of distraction exist. An April report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, for example, describes three basic, unofficial categories: purposeful, incidental and uncontrolled.

An example of the first is changing a CD in the stereo; the second, talking on a cell phone (or watching a laptop); the third, the traditional kids screaming in the back seat, or sneezing, coughing or drowsiness.

Degrees of criminality vary. Is switching CDs a more egregious offense than talking on the phone? (Some studies say it is.) Would symptoms of a common cold become evidence of driver distraction? What about, say, eating food from a perfectly legal drive-through restaurant?

Some places also cite “cognitive distraction” as well, which describes the mental impact that stress or emotional distress have upon a person’s driving ability. How would scenarios like these fit under the law?

There are mitigating factors, too. Take the woman with the laptop: She admits having it open and the “Gilmore Girls” running, but for the purpose of combating drowsiness. Does the purposeful distraction of the television show offset the uncontrolled distraction of feeling sleepy?

The laptop example does illustrate how technology stymies the policing of responsible driving habits. Mal Leary, of the Capital News Service, quoted Sen. Bill Diamond of Windham recently saying gadgets are outpacing the law.

This is the era of the Blackberry and iPod, but these hand-helds are only part of the problem; vehicles themselves are also now mobile supercomputers. Would distraction apply only to extra-automobile contraptions, or would in-car systems, like a handy global positioning system, be subject as well?

These are interesting ideas to bat about, but Maine lawmakers should think twice about opening this Pandora’s Box in the next session. Driving while distracted is an issue that boils down to the need for drivers to utilize plain common sense.

And that’s one thing government, despite all its power, cannot legislate.