On Monday, the winners of the 2010 Pulitzer Prizes were announced – and the Pulitzer for “National Reporting” went to Matt Richtel for his New York Times series, Driven to Distraction.

The New York Times credit Richtel’s articles with “upend[ing] social attitudes” about mobile phone and device use while driving – and for the 200 bills aimed at curbing distracted driving legislators across the U.S. have proposed in recent months.

In addtion to Ricthel, distracted driving has garnered the attention of some other very influential people.  Chief among these are of course Oprah, whose No Phone Zone campaign reaches millions of homes every weekday afternoon, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.  Sec. LaHood has been on a campaign to prevent distracted driving on American roads since the beginning of his tenure.  Sec. LaHood saluted Richtel this week on his official blog, Fastlane: “[Thanks] to Matt…what once was automatic is now becoming unacceptable.”  Not only unacceptable, but criminal.

Socially and legally, distracted driving due to cell phone use is fast becoming taboo.  For example, one article in the “Driven to Distraction” series reported on the case of a British woman sentenced to 21 months in prison for causing a fatal crash due to texting while driving.  Just this week, a court in California sentenced Martin Kuehl to four years in prison for his role in a fatal texting-related crash.  According to prosecutors, Kuehl was texting while stopped at a red light, and did not respond by moving forward when the light turned green.  A driver behind him honked, Kuehl accelerated forward – and fatally struck Martha Ovalle, who was still in the crosswalk.  According to the Daily Pilot, Kuehl maintains he didn’t see Ovalle in the roadway due to some kind of glare, but phone records and witnesses suggest that he was in fact distracted by texting.