A bill before the state Senate would give officers a new tool to help determine if distracted driving was the cause of an accident.

Assemblywoman Shelley Mayer, who is a co-sponsor of the bill, says it would enable police to examine phones, but they wouldn't be able to download any personal data.

“This bill is an effort to give our police, through the state, the tools they need to check at the time of the accident simply really whether you were swiping or typing and if you were doing one of those two things this will determine and show them this happened,” says Assemblywoman Mayer.

The New York Civil Liberties Union says a major concern of the bill is the potential for invasion of privacy.

In a statement, spokesperson Rashida Richardson said in part, “This bill gives police power to take and search peoples' phones -- which contain our most personal, private information -- at every fender bender. We don't yet know if Textalyzers can even detect distracted driving. But we are certain that enforcing this proposed law would violate people's privacy and could potentially impute guilt for innocent activities."

State Sen. Terrence Murphy, another proponent of the bill, says it's simple: something needs to be done when it comes to texting behind the wheel, so that no one loses a life over texting and driving.

“We did a really good job of making drinking and driving a national effort; this needs to be a national effort. The reality is that we had a 61 percent increase in auto accidents over the last year,” says Murphy.