Texting and distracted driving laws in Texas

If another driver was looking at a phone when they hit you, Texas law has something specific to say about it. This page covers the Texas rules: what the state actually bans, the fines, the exceptions that catch people off guard, and how a phone violation can shape your crash claim.

Distracted driving stays common here. In 2025, TxDOT counted 86,384 crashes on Texas roads caused by distracted driving. Those crashes seriously injured more than 2,437 people and killed 299.¹ The year before, distracted driving killed nearly 400 Texans and seriously injured nearly 2,800 more.²

What Texas bans

Texas has one statewide texting ban, in Section 545.4251 of the Transportation Code.³ It took effect September 1, 2017.⁴ The rule is narrow and specific: a driver commits an offense by using a portable wireless device to read, write, or send an electronic message while operating a motor vehicle unless the vehicle is stopped.⁵ An electronic message means data read from or entered into the device to communicate with another person, so texts, emails, and app messages all count.⁵

This is a primary offense. A Texas officer can pull you over for texting alone, with no other violation.⁴

One word does a lot of work in that statute: stopped. The ban applies while your vehicle is moving. The statute exempts a driver whose vehicle is stopped, but it doesn't spell out how stopped you have to be, so the cautious reading is to wait until you are parked rather than testing it at a red light.

The fines, and when it becomes a crime

A first texting violation is a fine of $25 to $99. A second or later violation runs $100 to $200.⁵ TxDOT sums it up as a fine of up to $200 for the offense itself.¹

The number changes completely when the texting causes harm. If a driver reads, writes, or sends a message behind the wheel and that causes another person's death or serious bodily injury, the same statute makes it a Class A misdemeanor.⁵ In Texas that carries up to a $4,000 fine and up to one year in county jail.⁵ A crash with a badly hurt victim is a different legal situation than a ticket.

What Texas does not ban

Here is where drivers get tripped up. Texas is not a hands-free state for adults. Holding your phone, dialing a call, or checking a map is not by itself illegal statewide. The statute reaches messaging, and it lists exceptions on top of that. Under Section 545.4251 you have an affirmative defense if you were using a hands-free device, using the phone for GPS or navigation, reporting a crime or summoning emergency help, reading a message you reasonably believed was an emergency, using a device permanently mounted for a work dispatch duty, or activating a music function.⁵

Those carve-outs are wide, and they are part of why phone records matter so much after a crash. A driver can claim the map was open when a text was actually being sent.

Statewide, the handheld restrictions that go beyond texting apply to narrower groups of drivers.⁴ Drivers under 18 cannot use a wireless communication device at all, including hands-free. Drivers with a learner's permit cannot use a handheld phone during their first six months. No driver may use a handheld device in an active school crossing zone. And school bus drivers cannot use a phone while driving when children are present.

Your city may be stricter

The 2017 law preempts local texting ordinances, but only those. Its preemption clause reaches local rules about using a device to read, write, or send an electronic message, and nothing broader than that.⁵ That left dozens of Texas cities free to keep or pass full hands-free ordinances. Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, and Denton are among the cities that require fully hands-free driving inside city limits, so holding a phone at all can be a local violation even where state law would allow it. If your crash happened inside a city, the local ordinance can matter as much as the state statute.

How a phone violation affects your crash claim

Texas is an at-fault state, so the driver who caused the wreck and their insurer pay for the damage. A texting violation is strong evidence of that fault. Because Section 545.4251 sets a safety standard, breaking it supports a negligence claim, and the ticket, the officer's crash report, and the other driver's phone records all become useful.

Texas uses modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar under Section 33.001. You can recover as long as you were not more than 50 percent responsible, and your recovery is reduced by your own share of the blame.⁶ A distracted driver's fault is exactly the kind of fact that pushes their percentage up and yours down.

Two numbers are worth writing down. You generally have two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury or property damage lawsuit in Texas, under Section 16.003(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code.⁷ Miss that deadline and the claim is usually gone, no matter how clearly the other driver was texting. Texas also requires drivers to carry at least 30/60/25 in liability coverage: $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage, under Section 601.072.⁸ Serious injuries often cost more than those minimums, which is where the at-fault driver's assets and your own underinsured motorist coverage come in.

The official Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report is available through TxDOT's Crash Records Information System,⁹ and we walk through the Texas process on our Texas crash reports page. If your vehicle lost resale value even after solid repairs, that is a separate claim we cover on our Texas diminished value page. And if the injuries are significant, our legal directory can help you find a Texas attorney.

A texting citation against the other driver does not settle your case on its own, but it is one of the cleaner pieces of evidence you can have. Pair it with the crash report and phone records, watch the two-year deadline, and check whether a city hands-free ordinance applied where you were hit.

This is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your specific crash.

Sources

1. Texas Department of Transportation, Talk. Text. Crash. distracted driving campaign. https://www.txdot.gov/safety/traffic-safety-campaigns/distracted-driving.html

2. Texas Department of Transportation, Distracted driving is deadly driving. https://www.txdot.gov/about/newsroom/statewide/2024/distracted-driving-is-deadly-driving.html

3. Tex. Transp. Code Sec. 545.4251, Use of Portable Wireless Communication Device for Electronic Messaging; Offense. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.545.htm

4. Texas Department of Transportation, Texting and cellphone laws (primary enforcement, drivers under 18, learner's permits, school crossing zones, school bus drivers). https://www.txdot.gov/safety/driving-laws/texting-cellphone-laws.html

5. Enrolled House Bill 62, 85th Texas Legislature (2017), full text of Sec. 545.4251 including prohibited conduct, exceptions, fine ranges, Class A misdemeanor enhancement, and the local-ordinance preemption clause. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/85R/billtext/html/HB00062F.htm

6. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Sec. 33.001 (proportionate responsibility, 51 percent bar). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.33.htm

7. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Sec. 16.003(a) (two-year limitations period). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm

8. Tex. Transp. Code Sec. 601.072 (minimum liability coverage, 30/60/25). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.601.htm

9. TxDOT Crash Records Information System (CRIS). https://cris.dot.state.tx.us/public/Purchase/