CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- West Virginia lawmakers are working to stop you from texting behind the wheel.

A senate committee amended a bill Tuesday to put the brakes on distracted driving.

Almost everyone's guilty of using a cell phone while driving or attempting to drive. A bill that's been in the works for a while could eventually change that.

"There is a huge public safety risk by not policing ourselves," Kanawha County Delegate Nancy Guthrie said.

Both houses have been trying to do that for over a year.

In 2009, a bill passed to outlaw texting and talking on a cell phone while driving, but it died in the Joint Conference Committee.

"The cell phone raises more questions," West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Joe Miller said. "It can be questioned by more people and, as a result, complicate the issue and reduce the probability of passage."

It is an issue that was reduced on Tuesday by amendments to only include texting, making talking on the phone legal while driving.

"Texting is by far in a way the largest cause of accidents between the two between texting and the use of cell phones," Miller said.

Some lawmakers disagree, especially now that texting would be a primary offense.

"My sense is there's really not much of a distinction to be made as far as the danger of either using your cell phone or of texting," Guthrie said.

"If a police officer drives by someone and they just happen to be looking down, well then that actually under this bill gives them probable cause -- because this is a primary offense to stop someone," Republican Senator Clarke Barnes said.

Even if officers stop someone, it's still difficult to prove.

"There doesn't seem to be any teeth in it that give us any real statistics to know how well it works because we are at the mercy of an investigating officer at an accident scene," Barnes said.

The bill was approved and will now go before the Finance Committee. If it is approved there, it will then be brought to the Senate floor.