I agree with you about the dangers of texting. Had a couple close calls myself and, like you, I’ve abandoned the practice. For me, at least, it’s not reading a text that’s the problem. That doesn’t seem to be any more distracting that glancing at a map. It’s typing in a text. Though my new phone allows voice to text that is remarkably accurate. With added voice controls, texting might eventually become no more distracting than talking on the phone, which I don’t see as creating a big increase in risk, at least not for me.
However, I’ve just not seen any data that the spread of texting has resulted in a significant increase of accidents. The number of accidents per million miles has, I believe, been on a pretty steady downward trend ever since cars were invented. :-)
If that’s turned around in the last few years, it might be related to texting, but there are of course many other possible contributors.
A HUGE safety feature in my neck of the woods is creating those horizontal ridges in the centerline of two lane roads. A guy who I can only assume was texting crossed that line headed right toward me a couple months ago and you could tell that hitting those grooves is what got him to turn back into his lane.
Without those grooves, his trajectory would have made it almost impossible to avoid him completely.