How do we smartly limit smartphone use when driving?

Want to feel less safe when behind the wheel? Let your mind chew on these stats from an AT&T survey released earlier this week on smartphone use while driving: 61 percent of drivers admit to texting when driving, 33 percent check email, 27 percent use Facebook, and 14 percent are on Twitter.

No one disputes the danger. Actively picking up your phone, reading and typing on the small screen while looking away from the road dramatically increases the risk of a crash. Scores of safety campaigns, including AT&T’s AT&T's Can Wait initiative, have driven this point home. Yet people still drive and pick up their phone.

This is not just people stealing quick glances at the phone to read a text. While the survey did not distinguish between using the phone when stopped at a stop sign or traffic light and actually driving, it turns out 43 percent of the people texting are actively typing away.

Check our guide to distracted driving.

Given the high rate of smartphone use when driving, abstinence-based messages alone just aren’t enough. Ray LaHood, the former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, preached to lock the phone away when driving. That’s not happening. From the AT&T survey, only 5 percent of drivers put the phone in a closed console compartment or trunk.