The dangers of texting while driving are well known thanks in part to AT&T's (News - Alert) "It Can Wait" campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the dangerous practice that nearly half of teens admit to doing. However, it's also very risky to send of a text message while on foot, particularly when crossing the road, and potentially even more risky based on people's attitudes.

According to the Liberty Mutual Insurance Pedestrian Safety Survey, 60 percent of pedestrians walk while distracted by their smartphones — this includes texting, e-mailing, talking on the phone or listening to music — despite the fact that 70 percent consider this behavior dangerous. It's possible that such distractions contributed to the 4,280 pedestrian deaths in traffic crashes in 2010 reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) — a 4-percent increase from the previous year.

This is supported by a 2011 report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which found that 1,152 people were treated in hospital emergency rooms with injuries sustained while walking and using a cell phone or other electronic device.

"So much attention has been paid, and rightly so, to distracted driving that we have ignored the fact that distracted walking and crossing can be just as risky," said David Melton, a driving safety expert with Liberty Mutual Insurance and managing director of global safety. "From an early age, we all learn how to safely cross the street — look both ways, wait for the walk sign — but as adults many of us seem to forget those simple rules."

Of the 1,000 adults surveyed by Liberty Mutual Insurance, 55 percent said texting or e-mailing is the most dangerous thing a person can do while crossing the street, followed by running to beat oncoming traffic with 40 percent, and jaywalking with 24 percent.

Unfortunately, identifying an action as dangerous is usually not enough to stop people from doing it, based on the results of this study as well as the fact that three in five drivers admit that talking on a phone while driving is dangerous, while 70 percent continue to do so.

However, education and awareness can go a long way to reducing such behaviors. Hopefully, a program like "It Can Wait" will pop up in the near future to tackle this issue.