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His arm burned from the powerful airbag explosion as he reached for the flasher switch.

Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" blasted from the radio and his car filled with smoke as he squirmed to escape.

Before he stepped out of the car, he reached to the floorboard for the item that caused the accident — his cell phone.

Jeff Robillard, 18, is a freshman at Southern Methodist University now, but he was 16 years old when he had his first car accident. He had his license for a month and felt confident enough to text while driving.

"I had a text from my girlfriend," Robillard said. "Just as I was beginning to respond, I slammed into the back of a stopped white carpet cleaning van that was waiting to turn left."

In a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 48 percent of young drivers aged 18-24 confirmed that they text behind the wheel, making texting while driving a growing issue.

Russ Rader, director of media relations for the institute, said that while laws may attempt to prevent people from texting while driving, it is hard to enforce.

"It's unlikely that bans on texting will reduce crashes," Rader said via e-mail. "The laws are very difficult to enforce. It's tough for an officer to spot someone texting, especially if the driver is trying to conceal it."

Instead, education on safety factors may be the solution.

The night of his accident, Robillard hit the van at about 50 mph.

"I was stunned and my ears were ringing from the airbag explosion," Robillard said. "I looked through my windshield and could see nothing because the hood was completely crunched and smashed up against the windshield."

Unable to see outside, Robillard tried to start his car. "I tried to put my car in drive," Robillard said. "But the left rear wheel of the van was wedged completely up into my engine from underneath and my car would not move."

Robillard called his parents and then stood on the side of the road and cried. "They were there within minutes, and my mom began crying hysterically when she saw the car and realized how bad it could have been," he said.

Robillard was lucky to walk away from the crash with only minor injuries.

It is difficult to calculate the number of accidents caused by cell phone usage, Rader said.

"Drivers in crashes don't often admit that they were at fault because they were distracted," Rader said. "We can look at overall crash numbers and see if there's any change over time as laws are passed or cell phone use increases."

Although 28 states have laws against texting while driving, Texas is not one of those states, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. In Texas, the cities of Austin, El Paso, Galveston and Stephenville have banned texting while driving.

"We know from decades of experience with highway safety laws that if drivers don't believe they will be ticketed, they won't change their behavior," Rader said.

Rader also acknowledged the many other distractions can cause a person to crash besides texting.

"Distracted driving is bigger than just texting," Rader said. "Even hands-free phone use carries a significant crash risk and no state has banned hands-free use. Drivers can just as easily be distracted and crash fiddling with their iPods, daydreaming, or scolding their kids at the wrong moment."

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 300,000 teens are injured in car crashes each year, about 8,000 are involved in fatal accidents and over 3,500 are killed.

Roadworthy Driving Academy in Schertz uses driving simulators to show their drivers education students the dangers of texting while driving. The room includes 16 simulators and has every function a car would have.

"Different tests are given to them and they have to react," said Karen Givilancz of Roadworthy Driving Academy.

"They are given a series of exercises as if they were driving a vehicle. Then they get a score at the end of how well they performed."

Students take the test twice. At first, the students take the simulator test with no distractions and both hands on the wheel. Then they allow students to pull out their phones and text people.

"Their driving is atrocious when they're texting," Givilancz said. "It's a hands-on way to show them that it's really not a good idea. So that way they get a feel of that danger."

Robillard took drivers education from another company and cannot recall a single time when the dangers of texting while driving were emphasized. He recalls watching several videos on drunken driving but none on the dangers of cell phones. He believes that more driving schools should incorporate the simulator test.

"While about 15 or 20 percent of my friends may have driven drunk before. I'd say that nearly 100 percent have talked, texted or used their phone in some way while driving," Robillard said. "It's scary."

Recently, the media are publicizing the dangers of texting while driving. AT&T has launched their "Txting & Driving … It can wait" campaign, encouraging people to take a no-texting pledge in an effort to end texting and driving. Oprah Winfrey is also advertising her "Don't tempt f8, that txt can w8" campaign.

Oprah's TV special on the risks of texting while driving inspired 17-year-old senior Erica Krueger of Antonian College Preparatory High School. Once an avid texter in the car, she has stopped using her phone while driving.

"When other organizations started talking about what has happened to people when they were texting while driving, I eventually just stopped altogether," Krueger said. "No text is worth it."

Robillard said he hopes that the publicity about texting and driving will help all drivers realize the effects of their deadly habit and how dangerous it is.

"I think the problem is not that they don't know that it's dangerous, but instead that they don't believe that it could happen to them," Robillard said. "They don't realize that one single text has the potential to change their life in the blink of an eye."