In all seriousness, I think the studies say it's 6x worse than drinking and driving. Think about that.
Just don't do it.
Let me first say that it is obviously not safe so I'm not arguing that. However, studies are routinely made with the desired outcome in mind and can be twisted a thousand ways. I know you likely don't have the answers, but how was the study conducted? What percent of accidents while texting involved teenagers who are probably worse drivers to begin with? Drunk driving usually gets more common the later you get at night while I would suspects the opposite for texting while driving. This is relevant because traffic also decreases, thus lowering the odds of getting into an accident. I would also assume plenty of texting accidents occur during rush hour with rear ending being the biggest culprit. Again, IMO, you shouldn't text and drive, but some times people get crazy with comparisons.
Rigging a car with a red light to alert drivers when to brake, Can and Driver magazine tested how long it takes to hit the brake when sober, when legally drunk at .08, when reading and e-mail, and when sending a text. The results are scary. Driving 70 miles per hour on a deserted air strip Car and Driver editor Eddie Alterman was slower and slower reacting and braking when e-mailing and texting.
The results:
- Unimpaired: .54 seconds to brake
- Legally drunk: add 4 feet
- Reading e-mail: add 36 feet
- Sending a text: add 70 feet
Kind of making his point for him here, IMO. The admittedly unscientific test by C&D included another person, a 22 year old intern who was probably better at texting and on an easier to use iPhone. While he still did definitely worse than driving unimpaired and without the phone, texting had very close to the same effect as driving drunk (and they were only right at the .08 BAC level).
Of course, they also didn't take into account for the percentage of time in a particular drive that someone texting would be texting vs the % the drunk person would be driving drunk. If you're looking at the texting problem as a whole, than I'm sure this is more than made up for by the # of people texting vs driving drunk, but for the individual it's a huge aspect of the comparison.
No, I'm not defending texting & driving.