People text and drive despite dangers, survey finds

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2013 file photo, a man uses his cell phone as he drives through traffic in Dallas. In a new survey, 98 percent of motorists who own cellphones and text regularly were aware of the dangers, yet three-quarters of them admit to texting while driving, despite laws against it in some states. Two-thirds said they have read text messages while stopped at a red light or stop sign, while more than a quarter said they have sent texts while driving. (AP Photo/LM Otero) less FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2013 file photo, a man uses his cell phone as he drives through traffic in Dallas. In a new survey, 98 percent of motorists who own cellphones and text regularly were aware of the ... more Photo: LM Otero, Associated Press Photo: LM Otero, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close People text and drive despite dangers, survey finds 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Nearly everyone agrees that texting and driving is dangerous. Many people do it anyway.

In an AT&T-sponsored survey of drivers who text daily — regardless of where they are — 98 percent said they were aware of the dangers of texting behind the wheel. Nonetheless, three-quarters of them admitted to texting while driving, despite broad public-service campaigns and laws against it in some states, including California.

Two-thirds said they have read text messages while stopped at a red light or stop sign, while more than a quarter said they have sent texts while driving. More than a quarter of those who texted while driving believed they “can easily do several things at once, even while driving.”

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The telephone survey of 1,004 U.S. adults was released Wednesday by AT&T Inc. as part of an anti-texting-and-driving campaign. AT&T designed the survey with David Greenfield, founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction and a professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Medicine.

AT&T is expanding the availability of a free app that silences text message alerts and activates automatically when a person is moving 15 mph or faster. (Passengers can turn it off.) The DriveMode app is coming to iPhones after being previously available on Android and BlackBerry phones for AT&T users only. The iPhone version will be available to customers of competing carriers as well, but some functions will work only on AT&T devices.

The study in May was of cell phone owners ages 16 to 65 who drive almost every day and text at least once a day. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Researchers conducted surveys with people on their cell phones, and it’s possible those who would have picked up on a landline might have different attitudes. It’s also possible attitudes among those who don’t text as often are different. It wasn’t immediately known what portion of daily drivers text less than once a day, excluding them from the survey.

Greenfield said the survey is the latest to show a discrepancy between people’s attitudes and behaviors.

It found a broad range of reasons why drivers text. Forty-three percent of the texting drivers said they want to “stay connected” to friends, family and work. Nearly a third did it out of habit.

Among other reasons for texting and driving:

• Twenty-eight percent said they are worried about missing out of something important if they don’t check their phones right away.

• More than a quarter said they believe that their driving performance is not affected by texting, and just as many people said they believe that others expect them to respond to texts “right away.”

• Just 6 percent answered that they are “addicted to texting,” although 14 percent admitted that they are “anxious” if they don’t respond to a text right away, and 17 percent feel “a sense of satisfaction” when they can read or respond to a text message.

Reggie Shaw was 19 in 2006 when he caused an accident while texting, killing two people. Today, he speaks out against texting and driving.

“It’s something I struggle with every day,” he said. “I know that I need to go out and talk to others about it. I don’t want others to make the same mistake I did.”

Shaw does not remember what he was texting about right before the accident. Back then, he said, “being on my phone when I drove was something I did all the time. It was just driving to me. I guess you’d call it ignorance but I never understood that it was dangerous. How could me being on the phone cause a car accident?”

Today, his phone is off when he’s driving. Never in the past eight years since the accident, he says, has he received a phone call or text message that was so important that it couldn’t wait until he stopped the car.

Greenfield, who studies the effects of digital technology on the brain, calls smartphones “the world’s smallest slot machines,” because they affect the brain in ways that gambling or drugs can. Dopamine levels increase as you anticipate messages, and that leads to higher levels of pleasure. Getting desirable messages can increase dopamine levels further.

Greenfield said campaigns against texting can help change attitudes and behavior, much like similar efforts with drunken driving.