The public has been warned for years about the dangers of texting while driving. Some scientists have even likened it to driving under the influence.

A new study by a U. Kansas professor shows most college students are well aware of the danger, yet choose to do it anyway. And it’s much more common among college-aged drivers than was previously thought.

Paul Atchley, an associate professor of psychology at KU, released the study last week that surveyed 400 college students aged 18 to 30.

Atchley found that 95 percent of the students were likely to either initiate or respond to a text message while driving, including those who did so while stopped in traffic.

“This study shows it’s far more common and it’s going to become far more common in the future,” Atchley said.

At least one KU student says that she knows how rampant the problem is.

“I’ve been behind people on the road that I thought were drunk, but I passed them and they were just texting,” Sheryl Miller, a senior, said.

The Kansas Senate has now passed legislation that would ban all drivers from texting on the road. The bill has yet to clear the House, but if passed, first offenses would come with a $100 fine and any subsequent offense would result in a misdemeanor. Twenty-four states already have some kind of legislation banning all drivers from texting while on the road.

During the Senate debate over the bill, Lt. Gov. Troy Findley said texting while driving was “a risky behavior, and Kansas needs a law to ban it.”

“People get arrested for drunk driving,” Miller said. They should probably be arrested for this kind of activity too.”

One surprising finding from the study indicates the people who do text and drive are generally aware of how risky of a behavior it is, yet they do it anyway. Atchley likened their mindset to those who are addicted to nicotine.

“People know this is a risky behavior, but they do it,” Atchley said. “We found if someone makes the choice to engage in the behavior, they perceive it as being less risky.”

According to Atchley, the college-aged group has latched onto texting as the primary form of communication, and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

“They will become safer drivers over time, but texting will still be how they communicate,” he said. “But even if texting and driving gets cut in half, that’s still almost half of all drivers that do it.”