AUSTIN — Texas lawmakers on Wednesday agreed that distracted driving remains a problem on Texas roadways but said it is unlikely the Legislature will toughen the ban on texting anytime soon despite highway and police officials continuing to sound the alarm.

“We had hearing after hearing and session after session to get that passed,” Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville said during a hearing Wednesday. “I think that one is resolved about as far as it could go.”

Committee members, during the discussion of ongoing safety efforts, instead said they supported the $600 million over the next two years that the Texas Department of Transportation has directed to other safety efforts, such as rumble strips along state roadways to alert drivers drifting off the road and cable barriers to stop vehicles from crossing highways into oncoming lanes.

Texas leads the nation in roadway deaths, though its fatality rate — the number of deaths for every 100 million miles of vehicle travel — continues to decline slightly. Texas, TxDOT and Houston-area officials have focused greater efforts on roadway safety in recent months and set goals of eliminating roadway deaths within 30 years.

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One area public safety and transportation officials said must be addressed is increasing instances of distracted driving, often caused by cell phone use by motorists. Hank Sibley, acting chief of the Texas Highway Patrol, part of the Department of Public Safety, estimated at least 10 percent of fatal crashes highway patrolman respond to involve distracted driving.

Texas banned texting while driving in 2017, but wrote the law in a way to protect other uses of a cell phone, such as typing directions into a navigation app or controlling music. The resulting prohibition, Sibley said, is difficult to enforce.

Many Texans, meanwhile, do not even know there is a ban, according to researchers. A study released in August by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute found distracted driving was least prevalent in Wichita Falls, in far north Texas near the Oklahoma border, where about three-quarters of drivers were aware of the texting ban and 6 percent of drivers were observed using phones while driving. In Houston, which fared worst among metro areas, about 60 percent of drivers were aware of the ban and 9 percent were seen on their phones behind the wheel.

Robert Wunderlich, a TTI researcher and head of the institute’s Center for Transportation Safety, said one factor between the two may be that Wichita Falls has a citywide cell phone ban that prohibits holding a phone while driving, while Houston has no such limits.

Despite the connection, Nichols said he does not expect the Legislature to tweak the law.

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The same is true for another oft-sought safety improvement, Nichols said: A helmet requirement for motorcyclists. The research is clear, he said, but so is the sentiment that the legislature cannot compel personal behavior.

Even if they do not agree on every issue, safety advocates said they welcomed the discussion and the support for TxDOT’s funding.

“Just having the discussion is a good thing,” said Jay Crossley, head of the nonprofit Farm & City which has advocated for efforts to eliminate road deaths and increased funding for safety changes to highways.

dug.begley@chron.com