Accusations that a federal safety agency in 2003 hushed up evidence about the growing danger of phoning while driving seems likely to prompt the Nebraska and Iowa Legislatures to re-examine the issue next year.

But that doesn’t mean a cell phone ban for drivers is imminent.

Both legislatures pressed the “hold” button on the issue in this year’s sessions. Lawmakers in both states acknowledged Tuesday that public resistance to any new phone restrictions would be high.

They also predicted that the news about the federal agency’s actions would fuel more debate.

In 2003, researchers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, alarmed at evidence that cell phone use behind the wheel was a rising danger, proposed a long-term of study of 10,000 American drivers to better assess the risk.

But the ambitious study never began. The New York Times reported that the agency decided not to make public the evidence it did have — hundreds of pages of research and warnings — partly, officials said, because of worry that members of Congress would accuse the agency of improperly lobbying states.

Dr. Jeffrey Runge, then head of the NHTSA, said he was urged to keep the research secret because members of Congress wanted his agency to stick to gathering data.

Critics say that thinking, and the failure to dig deeper into the issue, has cost lives and allowed a culture of behind-the-wheel multitasking to blossom.

“We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up,” Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety, told the Times. “No public health and safety agency should allow its research to be suppressed for political reasons.”

His center and Public Citizen, another consumer group, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to pry the research from the NHTSA, then gave the documents to the Times, which posted them on its Web site Tuesday.

The researchers’ main conclusion: Cell phone use by drivers caused an estimated 240,000 accidents and 955 deaths nationwide in 2002.

The researchers also drew up a letter for their top boss, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, to issue, but it was shelved. It would have warned states that “hands-free” cell phone laws — of the sort six states have adopted — aren’t likely to fix the problem.

The reason: A phone conversation itself, not just holding the device, takes a driver’s focus off the road, studies showed.

Iowa has no law restricting phone use while driving. Nebraska since last year has been among 21 states prohibiting young drivers from using a phone.

Iowa Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, a Democrat from Des Moines, said Tuesday that next year he’ll reintroduce his bill to limit drivers to hands-free phones, a measure that died in committee this past session.

“This could be tremendously helpful,” he said of the federal data, noting that “one of the issues that came up before was not enough research.”

Although imperfect, a hands-free bill would be a first step, he said, likening it to the way seat-belt laws were gradually adopted beginning a generation ago. “Sooner or later, this will be a law,” he said.

In Nebraska, Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln, who has tried unsuccessfully to expand the state’s phoning-while-driving restrictions, said he was shocked at the idea that a federal safety agency would withhold useful data.

“That’s wrong,” he said. “From my vantage, I’d like to have as much information as possible.”

Fulton said he would support extending restrictions to older drivers next year but would leave introduction of such a bill to others.

Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff, chairman of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee — who said a near-wreck prompted him to adopt a personal ban on phone calls while he drives — said the issue “probably could come up again” next session.

For most Nebraskans, Harms conceded, “the issue is that we’re going to be invading their personal privacy, their personal rights.” But it should be viewed as a matter of public safety, he said, because phoning while driving puts others in danger.

The matter will be pressed on nonlegislative fronts, too.

The Greater Omaha Chapter of the National Safety Council, a group best known for the driver’s education courses it teaches, imposed its own ban on phoning while driving Tuesday — on its employees, hoping to make them a model for other organizations.

“It’ll be slow,” President Kay Farrell, said of progress on the issue, noting that it took years to persuade people of the wisdom of seat belts. “I think the science is pretty convincing when you look at it.”

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444-1140, roger.buddenberg@owh.com