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Georgia Distracted Driving Law: The Hands-Free Act
Holding a phone behind the wheel is illegal in Georgia.
The Hands-Free Georgia Act, in force since July 1, 2018, bans holding or supporting a phone with any part of the body while driving.
Texting, watching video, and recording video behind the wheel are banned outright.
For an injured victim, the law does something more: a driver who broke it can be negligent per se, which hands your claim its liability argument.
Hit by a driver on their phone? Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review. You Win or It's Free.
At-a-Glance: Georgia's Hands-Free Act
- Since July 1, 2018, Georgia drivers cannot hold or support a phone while driving (O.C.G.A. § 40-6-241)
- Texting, email, video watching, and video recording behind the wheel are banned outright
- Fines run $50 to $150 with 1 to 3 license points, escalating by offense
- Hands-free calls, earpieces, smartwatch voice calls, and mounted navigation stay legal
- In an injury case, a Hands-Free violation can establish negligence per se against the distracted driver
What Georgia's Hands-Free Act Prohibits
O.C.G.A. § 40-6-241 draws the line at the hand, not the conversation.[1] While driving, you cannot:
- Hold or support a phone with any part of your body, in your hand, against your shoulder, or in your lap.
- Write, send, or read text-based communication, including texts, email, instant messages, and internet browsing.
- Watch or record video on any device, with a narrow exception for navigation displays and dash cams doing their job.
What stays legal is the hands-free version of the same activity: voice calls through Bluetooth or an earpiece, a smartwatch used for voice communication, one-touch answering, and GPS navigation on a mounted device. The statute targets the physical act of handling the device, because that is what takes eyes and hands off the road.
Sitting at a red light does not help. The statute's exception covers a lawfully parked vehicle, and a car paused in a travel lane is not parked. Pulled over and legally parked is a different story.
The Penalties for a Hands-Free Violation
The criminal side of the statute escalates by offense within a 24-month window:
| Offense | Fine | License Points |
|---|---|---|
| First | $50 | 1 point |
| Second | $100 | 2 points |
| Third and beyond | $150 | 3 points |
First-time offenders can sometimes have the charge dropped by showing the court they acquired a hands-free device. The fines are modest by design. The real weight of the statute, for anyone the distracted driver hurt, sits on the civil side.
Negligence Per Se: What the Violation Does to an Injury Claim
In an ordinary Georgia crash case, you prove the other driver failed to use reasonable care. When that driver violated a safety statute like the Hands-Free Act, the analysis can shorten: violating a law designed to prevent exactly this harm, against exactly this class of victim, can establish negligence per se. The violation itself supplies the breach.
The practical effect is a claim that starts ahead. Instead of arguing about what a reasonable driver would have done, the fight moves to causation and damages, whether the phone use caused the crash and what the crash cost you. Under Georgia's 50 percent comparative fault bar, starting the fault fight with a statutory violation on the other side's ledger matters.
A distracted-driving citation on the crash report helps, but a conviction is not required for the civil claim. The evidence that proves the violation can be built independently.
How Phone Use Gets Proved After a Georgia Crash
Drivers rarely admit they were on the phone. The proof comes from records that outlive the denial.
Carrier records, obtained by subpoena, timestamp calls and data sessions against the moment of impact. App activity, infotainment system logs, and the phone's own screen-time data can place a hand on the device when the vehicle left its lane. Witnesses see the glow of a screen or a head tilted down, intersection and doorbell cameras record it, and in a commercial-vehicle case the truck's telematics narrow the timeline to the second.
That evidence has to be demanded early, before retention windows close and devices get replaced. It is one of the first preservation steps our Georgia car accident lawyers take in a suspected distraction case.
Distraction Beyond the Phone Still Counts
The Hands-Free Act is the headline, but § 40-6-241 also keeps Georgia's older, broader rule: every driver must exercise due care and avoid any action that distracts from safe operation. Eating, reaching into the back seat, grooming in the mirror, none of it requires a phone to be negligent.
The difference is proof. A statutory phone violation can hand you negligence per se, while a general distraction claim runs through the ordinary reasonable-care analysis. Both get the injured person to the same question: what did the distraction cost, and who pays for it. The deadlines for bringing that claim sit on our Georgia statute of limitations page.