Free Case Evaluation
FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW
TO REQUEST YOUR CASE REVIEW
Texas Distracted Driving Law
Texting while driving is illegal everywhere in Texas.
Since 2017, state law has banned reading, writing, or sending electronic messages behind the wheel.
Holding a phone for other uses is a patchwork: legal under state law, banned by hands-free ordinances in cities including Austin and San Antonio.
For a crash victim, the law's real weight is in the civil claim, where the violation and the phone records become the fault case.
Hit by a distracted driver? Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review. You Win or It's Free.
At-a-Glance: Distracted Driving in Texas
- Texting while driving is banned statewide (Tex. Transp. Code § 545.4251)
- No statewide handheld ban, but cities like Austin and San Antonio require hands-free
- Handheld phone use is banned in active school zones statewide
- A violation can support negligence per se in an injury claim
- Phone records, app data, and cameras prove what drivers deny
What Texas Bans Statewide, and What It Leaves to the Cities
The statewide rule is Transportation Code § 545.4251: a driver may not read, write, or send an electronic message while operating a vehicle, unless the vehicle is stopped.[1] Texts, email, and messaging apps all qualify.
Texas stopped short of a full handheld ban, and dozens of cities filled the gap with their own hands-free ordinances, Austin and San Antonio among the largest. Inside those cities, holding a phone for nearly any purpose while driving is an offense. Statewide, handheld use is also banned in active school zones, and drivers under 18 face broader restrictions.
The result is a patchwork that confuses drivers and matters less than they think in a crash case, because civil negligence does not require a citation under any particular ordinance.
What a Violation Does for Your Injury Claim
A driver who broke the texting ban while causing a crash can face negligence per se, where the statutory violation itself supplies the breach of duty, and a distracted driver is negligent under ordinary care principles whether or not any statute names the behavior.
The practical value shows up in the fault percentages. Under Texas's 51 percent bar, a defendant caught texting starts the apportionment argument in a hole, and carriers price claims accordingly. Distraction evidence also blunts the insurer's favorite counterattack, because a driver who was on a phone has a harder time selling the jury on your share of the blame.
How Phone Use Gets Proved When the Driver Denies It
Nobody admits texting. The record does it for them: carrier records subpoenaed in litigation timestamp every message and data session against the moment of impact, app and infotainment logs show a screen in use, and the phone's own analytics keep score. Around the vehicle, dash cameras, intersection footage, and witnesses who saw a lit screen or a bowed head fill in the rest.
Every one of those sources expires or gets replaced on its own schedule, so preservation demands go out in the first days of a suspected distraction case. Our Texas car accident lawyers treat the phone question as evidence to secure, never an accusation to argue.
Distraction Was Never Just the Phone
Eating, reaching into the back seat, grooming in the mirror: none of it needs a statute to be negligent. The phone dominates these cases because it leaves records, but the legal theory is the same for every distraction, a driver who was not watching the road when the road required it. What changes is the proof, and building it is the job.