The good news is that the percentage of drivers surveyed in this report who admit to texting (or emailing) while driving has dropped since last year. The bad news is that it’s still around 25%.

Last year, Vlingo, a firm specializing in voice recognition technology, specifically for the mobile market, released a report called “Consumer Text Messaging Habits,” and nearly 30% of the respondents said they text while driving. This year’s report, released Wednesday and renamed “Consumer Mobile Messaging Habits” (.PDF), shows the percentage of people admitting such behavior has dropped to 26% (woo-hoo!).

That’s still a pretty high number, and it also encourages behavior by people which carries over into their business life, and causes things like the Metrolink train accident from last year. Interestingly, it doesn’t appear that having no driving while texting (DWT) law in place has any effect on the stats:

As of May 2009, only seven states and the District of Columbia have laws completely prohibiting any person from sending text messages while operating a vehicle. However, whether a state has a law banning DWT does not seem to correlate to less DWT activity.

• Two of the top five worst offenders (TN, NJ, AL, ID, OK) have some form of DWT/mobile phone ban in place or pending (one of which is focused solely on young drivers).

• Of the five states with the best records (AZ, VT, RI, OH, MI), only Rhode Island has a ban on DWT and it only applies to those under the age of 18.

Here’s something that’s unnerving, but probably something most would agree is not an unexpected statistic: almost 60% of those aged 16 to 19 admit to DWT. So the drivers witht he least amount of experience are the ones most doing the DWT, which some have said is as bad, in terms of producing poor driving, as DWI.

Dave Grannan, of Vlingo said:

“In just one year, the public conversation about the issue of DWT has escalated, particularly in the wake of some high‐profile accidents. Texting is such an integral component of our daily lives, and the cautionary tales about DWT danger have not stemmed the tide. We predicted last year that this problem would get worse, and it has since more people are texting. The good news is that many state legislatures are starting to take up this issue, and today more advanced technologies exist that can increase safety on the roads.”

The Vlingo Consumer Mobile Messaging Habits Report was fielded by independent panel research firm Toluna and responses were generated from a survey among 4,816 online opinion panel members (age 13 or older) living in the continental United States.