If you were hit by a driver who was looking at a phone instead of the road, Mississippi law is on your side, but the rules are narrower and stranger than most people assume. The state bans texting behind the wheel. It does not ban holding a phone to your ear for a call. Knowing exactly where that line sits matters, both for the ticket the other driver may face and for the injury claim you may bring.
Mississippi also carries a grim distinction. It has had the highest traffic-fatality rate in the country in recent years.1 That backdrop is worth keeping in mind while you sort out what happened.
What Mississippi actually bans
The core distracted-driving law is Miss. Code Ann. § 63-33-1. It prohibits the operator of a moving vehicle from writing, sending, or reading a text message, and from accessing, reading, or posting to a social networking site, using a hand-held mobile telephone.2 The term "text message" is defined broadly to include text-based messages, instant messages, electronic messages, and email. It does not include an emergency, traffic, or weather alert, or a message tied to operating or navigating the vehicle, so using your phone's GPS is not itself a violation.2
A violation is a civil offense, not a crime. The penalty is a $100 fine for violations committed from and after July 1, 2016 (it was $25 before that date).2 The ban is primary enforcement, which means an officer can pull a driver over for texting alone, without needing another reason for the stop.2
Here is the part that surprises people. Mississippi does not ban talking on a hand-held phone. There is no general hands-free requirement for adult drivers. Someone holding a phone to their ear, dialing, or scrolling a call log is not violating § 63-33-1 as long as they are not texting or using social media. Mississippi has not enacted a broader hands-free requirement, so the texting-and-social-media ban is the outer limit for most drivers.2
The ban was not always permanent. The 2015 law that created it carried a repealer, a built-in expiration date. In 2018, House Bill 900 deleted that repealer, which is why § 63-33-1 is still on the books today.3
The much stricter rules for new drivers and bus drivers
Adults caught texting pay a $100 civil fine. New drivers face something far harsher.
Under Miss. Code Ann. § 63-1-73, a person driving on an intermediate license, a temporary learning permit, or a temporary driving permit may not use a wireless communication device to send or receive a written message while the vehicle is in motion.4 For these drivers the violation is a misdemeanor, not a civil ticket, and it carries a fine of up to $500. If the driver is in a crash at the time of the violation, the fine climbs to as much as $1,000.4 For a teenager on a graduated license, in other words, a single text can turn into a criminal charge.
The same statute reaches bus drivers. A person may not use a wireless communication device while operating a passenger bus carrying a minor, with narrow exceptions for an emergency and for a school bus driver handling official school business.4
What the numbers look like in Mississippi
Mississippi records a lot of fatal crashes for its size. The state logged 732 traffic deaths in 2023, following 703 in 2022 and 766 in 2021.5 Its 2023 fatality rate was 1.79 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, the worst rate of any state.51
Nationally, distraction is a measured and stubborn problem. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration counted 3,275 people killed in distraction-affected crashes in 2023, about 8 percent of all traffic deaths that year.6 NHTSA notes that reading or sending a single text takes a driver's eyes off the road for about five seconds, long enough at highway speed to cover the length of a football field blind.7 Distraction is also widely believed to be undercounted, since it depends on a driver admitting to it or an officer inferring it after the fact.6
Mississippians are not shy about the habit. In survey work summarized by the Mississippi State Department of Health, about one-third of adult drivers in the state said they had read, written, or sent a text while driving.8
Why a texting ticket matters to your injury claim
Mississippi is an at-fault, or "tort," state, and it follows pure comparative negligence under Miss. Code Ann. § 11-7-15.9 You can recover damages even if you were partly to blame, with your award reduced by your own percentage of fault. If a distracted driver was 90 percent responsible and you were 10 percent, you still collect 90 percent of your damages.
The texting ban feeds directly into that fault analysis. A driver who violates § 63-33-1 is breaking a safety statute written to protect other people on the road, and that violation is powerful evidence of negligence.2 Phone records, which can be subpoenaed, often show exactly when a text was sent or a screen was touched relative to the moment of impact.
Most distracted-driving cases are ordinary negligence claims. Mississippi does allow punitive damages under Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-65 where there is clear and convincing evidence of gross negligence that shows willful, wanton, or reckless disregard for the safety of others.10 A driver who was deep in a text thread across several messages, or streaming video, can cross that line.
Watch the clock. Mississippi's general personal-injury statute of limitations is three years from the date of the crash under Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49, and the same period applies to claims for damage to your vehicle.11 Miss a filing deadline and the strength of your case stops mattering.
If you need the official crash report, it documents what the investigating officer recorded, sometimes including a distraction notation. If your car lost market value because it now carries an accident on its history, that is a separate diminished value claim worth understanding on its own. When the injuries or the fault picture get complicated, it is worth talking to a lawyer, and you can start with the legal directory.
After a distracted-driving crash
Get medical attention, then document what you can. Photograph the vehicles and the scene, and get the other driver's insurance information. Note anything you saw them doing before the crash. If a witness saw the other driver on a phone, get their name and number. Report the crash and let the officer's report capture the details while they are fresh. You do not have to prove distraction yourself at the scene. You just have to preserve the facts that let someone else prove it later.
This article is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, State Traffic Data: 2023 Data (DOT HS 813743). https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813743.pdf
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Miss. Code Ann. § 63-33-1 (texting and social networking site prohibition; penalties). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-63/chapter-33/section-63-33-1/
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Mississippi Legislature, House Bill 900, 2018 Regular Session (deleting the repealer on § 63-33-1). https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2018/html/HB/0900-0999/HB0900SG.htm
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Miss. Code Ann. § 63-1-73 (wireless communication device use by intermediate/permit drivers and by bus drivers carrying a minor; penalties). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-63/chapter-1/article-1/section-63-1-73/
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Federal Highway Administration, State Highway Safety Report, Mississippi (2019-2023 fatality counts and rates). https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/reporting/state/safety.cfm?state=Mississippi
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NHTSA, Distracted Driving in 2023, Traffic Safety Facts Research Note (DOT HS 813703). https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813703
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NHTSA, Distracted Driving (risky driving overview). https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/distracted-driving
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Mississippi State Department of Health, Distracted Driving. https://msdh.ms.gov/page/43,9709,98,483.html
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Miss. Code Ann. § 11-7-15 (comparative negligence). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-11/chapter-7/in-general/section-11-7-15/
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Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-65 (punitive damages). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-11/chapter-1/section-11-1-65/
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Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49 (general three-year statute of limitations). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-15/chapter-1/section-15-1-49/