Is texting as bad as drunken driving?

When drivers text, they might as well be drunk.

At least that's what others on the road think, a new survey by Insurance.com reveals.

The insurance-comparison website asked 1,000 drivers - all married adults - about their perceptions of the risk from texting while driving versus other kinds of behind-the-wheel behavior. The respondents said texting was most comparable to:

• DUI: 75 percent

• Running a stop sign: 15 percent

• Speeding: 7 percent

• A parking ticket: 3 percent

Even as science is beginning to confirm what commuters already apparently think -- that the guy in the next lane fiddling with his phone is as dangerous as a 2 a.m. barfly weaving home -- drunken driving and texting couldn't be treated more differently by law enforcement and insurance companies today.

A DUI may get you jail time and cost $10,000 in fines and hefty insurance hikes. Texting most likely gets you a fine and a small bump in premiums, if that. (See “ .”)

“There is preliminary evidence that [smartphone use] can be four to six times as distracting as alcohol at low levels,” said David Greenfield, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. “It requires a significant amount of cognitive capacity.”

“People realize it's dangerous,” said Lisa Hollister, a trauma nurse who runs , one of the nation's oldest anti-texting campaigns. “I don't think we need to create that awareness. The real question is, how do you get people to stop?”

DUI posed a similar problem

Safety advocates posed the same question about drinking and driving three decades ago. At the time, a beer for the road was culturally acceptable, and DUI fatalities were twice what they are today.

And the challenges faced then sound chillingly like those cited today regarding texting and the use of cellphone applications by drivers: People are in denial about the risk they pose (although they recognize it's dangerous when other drivers do it); the behavior is addictive, making it extremely hard to change; and, without repercussions, habits are extremely hard to break.

More than half (57 percent) of respondents said they had ridden with a texting driver, but only 38 percent admitted to doing it themselves. (Other surveys reveal that some people claim not to text even though they read on the move and write when stopped, both legally considered texting at the wheel.)

Sixty-five percent of passengers in the Insurance.com survey had asked drivers who were texting to stop; 28 percent said nothing.

“The interesting thing about smartphone use,” Greenfield said, is that 80 to 90 percent of people say it's dangerous yet 75 percent admit to doing it anyway. “That's the similar kind of discrepancy that we used to see with alcohol. … It's called denial.”

This is your brain on a smartphone

Alcohol, as many know all too well, makes us stupid, dulling the region of the brain responsible for higher decision-making.