Some Westchester County legislators were not happy to hear yesterday that the coming state law banning texting while driving is actually weaker than the county’s law — and that the county’s law will be replaced by it.

But that wasn’t the oddest response I got to the articles I wrote about texting and the many other things people do behind the wheel that make other drivers uncomfortable. One somewhat brazen reader related this tale:

“I got pulled over once for using a cell phone and when I went to court I bought a small tape recorder that was the same size as a cell phone and told the judge I was a salesman and part of my routine was to make verbal notes about my last call while driving to my next one. There is no law against talking into a device other than a cell phone so the judge had to throw it out. The trooper was not happy.”

Now, I’m not repeating it here to give anyone ideas. (That one wasn’t remarkable because it was particularly creative. Anyone could have thought of it. The surprising thing was that the person actually went through with it — and then bragged about it in a response to my article on our Web site.)

I put it there to give yet another idea of how difficult it can be to enforce these laws.

So Legislator James Maisano, the New Rochelle Republican, was bothered to learn that the state law would replace the county law. The difference is this: Under a Westchester law that began earlier this year, a police officer can pull you over if he sees you typing a text message while your driving.

Under state law, the officer can’t. Instead, a cop can only write you a texting-while-driving ticket, with its $150 fine, if he catches a driver doing something else wrong as well.

Maisano raised this at a legislative committee meeting today (Monday) in the Michaelian Office Building, 148 Martine Ave.

When another legislator suggested that the law was written that way because it would be difficult to stop every driver who appeared — possibly mistakenly — to be typing a text message, Maisano said, “I want them stopped.”

Maisano wanted to know if the county could preserve its law. Occassionally, he noted, a state law will say that a local law can be more restrictive than a state law. But county attorneys told him that in this case, it can’t. (I’d gotten the same answer when I wrote the story, not only from Westchester, but from Rockland County officials, too. The law there is similar to Westchester’s and also will be replaced by state law.)

Bill Burton, the Ossining Democrat who heads the Board of Legislators legislative committee, said the legislators will bring that up with the county’s state lawmakers to see if something can be done.

As to why the state law was written the way it was, I was not able to find an answer. As you’ll recall if you saw the article, a spokesman for the head of the state Senate transportation committee pointed to the state Assembly transportation committee head. That legislator, Assemblyman David Gantt of Rochester, refused to return calls I left for him over a couple of weeks. (His staff very dilligently took down my phone number and said oh, yes, we’ll have him or someone else get back to you, but in the end, nothing.)