ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — With the Christmas weekend behind us and the New Year’s weekend ahead, many people are made aware of the dangers of impaired driving.

Equally as important to remember are the dangers posed by distracted driving, especially dangers posed by those who are texting and driving.

“It is definitely just as dangerous to drive while distracted as to drive while impaired,” said Lt. Anthony Dobson with the Robertsdale Police Department. “Texting and driving requires a lot of attention and a lot of time spent with your eyes away from the road.”

While a pair of wrecks recently in Robertsdale have sparked talk on social media, Dobson said, it is simply almost impossible to prove the extent that accidents are caused by texting and driving.

“It’s just impossible for us to know how many accidents are being caused by distracted drivers,” he said, “specifically drivers who were texting and driving.”

According to stoptextsstopwrecks.org, presented by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and The Ad Council, 46 states (which includes D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands) have laws which ban text messaging for all drivers.

While Alabama is one of those states, Dobson said, the law as it is written is almost impossible to enforce.

“We have to be able to prove that the person was engaged in sending and receiving texts,” he said, “and not just dialing a phone number, which is allowed under the law.”

An easier law to enforce, Dobson said, which is currently been issued in 14 states, according to the website, is a ban on all hand-held devices while driving, allowing only hands-free usage.

“It’s just scary how many people you see at an intersection who are texting,” he said. “We just want everyone out there to be safe and people need to realize just how dangerous it is.”

Here are some additional facts presented by stoptextsstopwrecks.org:

•More than half (53 percent) of all adult cellphone owners have been on the giving or receiving end of a distracted walking encounter, according to a Pew Research study.

•Drivers in their 20s are 24 percent of drivers in all fatal crashes, but are 27 percent of the distracted drivers and 33 percent of the distracted drivers that were using cell phones in fatal crashes.

•In 2015, there were 3,477 people killed and an estimated additional 391,000 injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers.

•Nine percent of all drivers 15 to 19 years old involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the crashes. This age group has the largest proportion of driv¬ers who were distracted at the time of the crashes.

•Ten percent of fatal crashes, 15 percent of injury crashes, and 14 percent of all police-reported motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2015 were reported as distraction-affected crashes.