Texting and Distracted Driving Laws in Alabama

If another driver was looking at a phone when they hit you, they may have broken one of two separate Alabama laws, and each one changes what your claim looks like. The general case against distracted driving is well understood. What follows is the part that's specific to this state: the exact statutes, the dollar fines, the license points, the dates, and the exceptions that catch people off guard.

Alabama's two distracted-driving statutes

Alabama restricts phone use behind the wheel through two code sections people tend to blur together.

The older one is the texting ban. Since 2012, Ala. Code § 32-5A-350 has made it illegal to drive on any public road, street, or highway while using a wireless device to write, send, or read a text-based message, and the statute defines that to include text messages, email, and instant messages.¹ Texting is a primary offense, so an officer who sees it can stop you and cite you for that alone.

The newer one is the hands-free rule. Act 2023-478, formally the Representative Koven L. "K.L." Brown Act, created Ala. Code § 32-5A-350.1, titled "Operating a Motor Vehicle in a Distracted Manner."² It reaches further than texting. You may not physically hold or support a phone or other stand-alone electronic device while driving, you can't watch, record, or broadcast video, and you can't use more than a single tap or swipe to begin or end a call.³

That law took effect June 15, 2023, with a deliberate grace period. For the first twelve months, officers could only issue written warnings, and no points attached. Full ticketing started June 15, 2024, and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) enforces it statewide.³

What it costs

The two statutes carry different penalties, which matters if you're reading a citation on the driver who hit you.

A texting conviction under § 32-5A-350 is $25 for a first offense, $50 for a second, and $75 for a third or later offense.¹

A hands-free violation under § 32-5A-350.1 costs more and adds points to the license. Within any 24-month window, a first offense is up to $50 and one point, a second is up to $100 and two points, and a third or later is up to $150 and three points.³ Those points stack. Alabama's driver point system can trigger a suspension once a driver piles up too many inside a two-year span, so a repeat phone offender can lose the license even though no single ticket is large.⁴

What Alabama still allows

The hands-free law targets holding the phone. A lot of phone use stays legal. Drivers can still talk through Bluetooth, a speaker, a voice assistant, or a dashboard or windshield mount, and a single button press or swipe to answer or end a call is permitted.³ A phone running as a mounted GPS with the route already entered is fine; keying in the destination while the car is moving is not.¹

The statutes also protect genuine emergencies. You can use a handheld phone to reach police, fire, an ambulance, a hospital, or other emergency services, and you can use it when your vehicle is lawfully stopped or parked on the shoulder.¹ On-duty first responders, utility crews answering an emergency, and drivers using a court-ordered ignition interlock fall outside the ban as well.²

The primary-versus-secondary wrinkle

Here's the detail that surprises people, and it's specific to Alabama. At the state level, the hands-free ban is a secondary offense. A trooper generally can't pull a driver over just for holding a phone. The officer has to see another violation first, such as an unsignaled lane change, swerving, or otherwise operating in a distracted manner, and the phone use rides along with that stop.⁴ Only the narrower act of texting stands on its own as a primary offense.

Cities can be stricter, and one is. Huntsville adopted a local hands-free ordinance that took effect January 1, 2024 and makes simply holding a device a primary offense, so Huntsville police can stop a driver for that by itself. A conviction under the city ordinance does not add points to your state driving record.⁵ If your crash happened inside Huntsville, the driver was held to a tougher standard than the statewide one.

Why the other driver's phone matters to your claim

Alabama is one of only a handful of pure contributory negligence states. Under the doctrine reflected in Rule 8(c) of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, a plaintiff found even one percent at fault can be barred from recovering anything.⁶ That rule is brutal, and it's exactly why pinning the distraction on the other driver is worth the work. A phone-related citation, the officer's crash report, and the driver's own call and text logs can put fault where it belongs.

Distraction can also raise what a claim is worth. When a driver's conduct rises to wantonness, a conscious disregard for the safety of others, Alabama law lets a jury award punitive damages on clear and convincing evidence.⁷ A driver thumbing through a text thread or watching video at highway speed can meet that bar, which is another reason to preserve phone evidence early before it's overwritten.

The scale of the problem in Alabama is real. ALEA troopers logged 1,972 crashes involving cell phone use in 2019 and 1,844 in 2020, and those totals only reflect the cases where an officer documented the distraction.⁸ Nationally, distraction-affected crashes killed 3,275 people and injured an estimated 324,819 in 2023.⁹ Reading one text pulls a driver's eyes off the road for about five seconds, which at 55 mph is the length of a football field traveled nearly blind.¹⁰

Deadlines and next steps

If a distracted driver injured you, the clock is already running. Alabama gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit under Ala. Code § 6-2-38, and blowing that deadline almost always ends the claim regardless of how clear the fault was.¹¹ Claims for vehicle and other property damage run longer, six years under § 6-2-34.¹²

Get the official crash report early, since it records whether the responding officer flagged distraction; you can order an Alabama crash report here. If your vehicle lost resale value even after a solid repair, that's a separate recovery, and our Alabama diminished value guide covers how it works. When you're ready to talk through the injury side, you can find an Alabama attorney in our directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Ala. Code § 32-5A-350, Text messaging while operating a motor vehicle; prohibited activities; fines; exceptions. Alabama Legislature. https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/code-of-alabama?section=32-5A-350

2. Ala. Code § 32-5A-350.1, Operating a motor vehicle in a distracted manner; violations; exceptions (Act 2023-478, the Representative Koven L. "K.L." Brown Act). Alabama Legislature. https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/code-of-alabama?section=32-5A-350.1

3. Hands-Free Law. Drive Safe Alabama (Alabama Department of Transportation). https://drivesafealabama.org/safety-initiatives/hands-free-law/

4. Phones down, hands on the wheel: It's Alabama's law. ALDOT News Hub. https://www.aldotnews.com/2024/03/11/phones-down-hands-on-the-wheel-its-alabamas-law/

5. Hands-Free Ordinance. City of Huntsville. https://www.huntsvilleal.gov/handsfree/

6. Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 8(c). Alabama Judicial System. https://judicial.alabama.gov/docs/library/rules/cv8.pdf

7. Ala. Code § 6-11-20, Punitive damages not to be awarded absent clear and convincing proof of wantonness. Alabama Legislature. https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/code-of-alabama?section=6-11-20

8. Just Drive: April Marks Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. https://www.alea.gov/news/just-drive-april-marks-distracted-driving-awareness-month

9. Research Note: Distracted Driving in 2023 (DOT HS 813 703). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813703

10. Distracted Driving. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/distracted-driving

11. Ala. Code § 6-2-38, Two-year limitations period for personal injury actions. Alabama Legislature. https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/code-of-alabama?section=6-2-38

12. Ala. Code § 6-2-34, Six-year limitations period for injury to property. Alabama Legislature. https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/code-of-alabama?section=6-2-34