Big headlines today state the obvious: Texting while driving is dangerous, practically everyone knows it, and a lot of people do it anyway.

That’s the widely reported finding of a new AT&T survey about texting while driving: More than 98 percent of adult drivers know it’s unsafe, but almost half of them admitted to doing it anyway.

Some drivers may try to rationalize that they put the phone away under tough driving conditions, when the road truly demands their full attention – complex traffic patterns, winding or slippery roads, highway speeds – but is that enough to reduce the danger?

A recent Drexel University study suggests that even under the simplest driving conditions, texting is still unsafe.

The title says it all: “Driver Performance While Texting: Even a Little is Too Much.”

Dr. Maria Schultheis works with a student volunteer using a virtual reality driving simulation in her lab at…