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RALEIGH (AP) — A guilty plea this month by a man who was texting behind the wheel when he struck and killed a motorcyclist may be the first case involving the two-year-old texting ban to make its way through North Carolina's courts, highway safety officials said.

Andrew James Watkins, 25, of Mecklenburg County pleaded Wednesday to misdemeanor death by vehicle in the August 2010 death of 39-year-old Joel Severson.

Watkins, who police say veered out of his lane and while distracted struck Severson's motorcycle, was given a 60-day suspended sentence, 200 hours of community service and fined $1,000 plus court costs this week in Buncombe County District Court. Watkins also agreed not to use or possess a cell phone while driving.

A statewide ban on texting while driving was passed by the legislature in 2009. Talking on cell phones is legal for North Carolina drivers above the age of 18.

Arthur Goodwin, a senior research associate at the Highway Safety Research Center in Chapel Hill, said drivers who talk behind the wheel increase their accident risk by 400 percent, about the same percentage as for driving while legally intoxicated.

But texting appears to be even riskier. A study on texting by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which used mounted cameras in the cabs of trucks, found that texting drivers are approximately 23 times more likely to crash or be involved in a near-crash.

"As dangerous as talking on the phone appears to be, texting is one of the most dangerous things a person can do behind the wheel," Goodwin said. "It takes your hands, your eyes, and your brains — the perfect storm, from a highway safety point of view."

While 34 states have enacted texting bans for drivers, little data exist to show the bans reduce the number of accidents, said Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association in Washington.

"It's very difficult to determine how often a cell phone is involved in a crash," Adkins says. "Unless a witness sees it, the driver is not likely to offer that information."

In Watkins' case, he may have acknowledged texting just prior to the crash or there may have been a witness report. It takes such evidence before investigators are permitted to subpoena cell phone records in order to prove cell phone use, Adkins pointed out.

Efforts to reach Watkins and his attorney, Andrew Bahnzhoff, were unsuccessful Friday.

Drivers are distracted in a variety of ways about half the time they spend behind the wheel, according to a review of 350 scientific papers on distracted driving published this month by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The studies also show that distractions are associated with 15 to 25 percent of crashes, ranging from minor property damage to fatal injuries.

Goodwin said the Highway Safety Research Center has conducted observational studies that determined about 9 percent of teen drivers are using cell phones at any given moment, even though the state has banned all types of cell phone use by drivers under age 18.

Studies show that bans on cell phone use while driving actually cause overall numbers to drop by half.

Goodwin said much of the safety and distraction research is now shifting from talking on a cell phone while driving to texting behind the wheel, which is rising in popularity.

"A study that looked at texting in particular found that states that had texting laws actually had increases in accidents," Goodwin said. "Maybe drivers are trying to hide the phones so as not to be visible. Maybe they're holding them in their laps. But that is just a guess."