By now, almost every driver should know that texting while driving can cause car accidents, but many drivers do it anyway. A recent survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that 95 percent of drivers believed that other drivers' texting was a serious threat to their own safety, but 35 percent of those same drivers admitted they themselves had texted while driving within the last 30 days.

As Ohio lawmakers consider whether to ban texting while driving, a new study has found that the impairment caused by texting while driving is even worse than many experts had previously believed.

The recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute, which tested drivers' ability to react to flashing yellow lights, showed that the typical reaction times for non-texting drivers were one to two seconds, while reaction times for drivers sending or reading text messages were at least three to four seconds.

Those extra seconds are significant. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, "If you look down to text for just a few seconds at 55 miles per hour, your car travels the length of a football field while you're not looking at the road."

The Texas Transportation study found that not only did the texting drivers have slower reaction times than the non-texting drivers did, but they were also 11 times more likely to miss seeing the flashing yellow lights altogether. Drivers who texted were also less able to maintain a safe position in their lanes.

Thirty-four states currently have laws banning texting while driving, including four states that first enacted the laws in 2011. Ohio has been considering a similar ban. The AAA survey found that 87 percent of drivers are in favor of such laws.

Sources: FairWarning.org, "Texting While Driving Even Worse Than Previously Thought, Study Finds," Stuart Silverstein, Oct. 6, 2011

AAAFoundation.org, ""Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Rules Drivers' Decisions on Cell Phone Use and Texting"