The difference is that drunk people don’t stop being drunk when the red light turns green whereas most distracted drivers do stop being distracted.

They may stop being distracted at some point, but I can assure you that it's not when the light turns green. Every single day I see many people staring at their phones while hurtling down the highway at 70 mph.

This isn’t a fair comparison, you need to compare a person texting while driving with a person who is texting while drunk driving.

Hot take: I'd rather share the road with someone completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit, than someone who is sober and distracted.

>completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit

This may not be possible. One of the effects of alcohol on cognition is that it increases distractability while simultaneously making you less aware of it's occurrence which is a compounding issue.

That's right, any amount of alcohol reduces awareness and increases reaction time.

I think what the poster meant is that while a person driving under influence might be slightly distracted (there is full spectrum of being under influence) the person fidgeting with a phone is always very distracted.

You can't be only slightly distracted when you are not looking at the road but reading or replying to message.

It’s also not possible to make a completely sober person be at peak focus and attention all the time as they drive.