People Who Text While Driving Know Dangers: Survey

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

In a new survey, 98 percent of motorists who own cellphones and text regularly are aware of the dangers, yet three-quarters of them admit to texting while driving, despite laws against it in some states.

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.

It comes as AT&T expanded availability of a free app that silences text message alerts. The DriveMode app is coming to iPhones after being previously available on Android and BlackBerry phones.

The survey 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.