It can cost you your life, never mind a bundle in fines or even a jail sentence. But the allure of texting, perplexingly, continues to distract Canadian drivers.

In fact, disturbing results of a poll released on Wednesday by the Canadian Automobile Association indicate some 33 per cent of respondents admit to having texted while stopped at a red light in the last month, alone.

It has to stop. As Jeff Walker of the CAA says, the effect of texting at a light lingers well after the light turns green, making it a dangerous driving habit. He rightly points out that it is socially unacceptable to drive drunk, “and that’s where we need to get with texting.”

Still, people continue to text and drive even though it actually causes more deaths than impaired driving.

Indeed, the Ontario Provincial Police reported in March that distracted driving was the cause of more deaths on provincial highways than any other factor for the third consecutive year, contributing to 69 in 2015. Worse, the province reports there is a distracted driving collision every 30 seconds.

So far, increased penalties haven’t stopped the people from texting while driving. The fine for distracted driving is a minimum $490 that a judge can increase to $1,000, plus three demerit points on conviction.

Nor have Ontario government commercials last summer that showed a young driver taking his eyes off the road for a second to check his phone. He is violently T-boned in a collision he could have avoided if he’d been watching the road. In the next frame he’s in a wheelchair for life.

It all adds up to one simple message: Stop driving and texting, already.