Distracted driving accident lawyer in Lee's Summit

Missouri’s hands-free law, RSMo § 304.822, bans holding a phone while driving. It took effect August 28, 2023, but proving a driver broke it in your crash still comes down to records and witnesses, not the law by itself.

What the law actually bans

The statute covers more than holding a phone to your ear. It bars reading or typing a text-based message, watching or recording video, and manually entering information into an app, all while the vehicle is moving. Hands-free voice-to-text and GPS navigation are carved out. School bus drivers face tighter restrictions than everyone else on the road.

Missouri’s texting-while-driving law started with warnings only

Lawmakers built in a grace period. Officers could only issue warnings for the first violation under this law, not citations, until January 1, 2025. Even now, an officer can’t pull a driver over solely for suspected phone use; the stop has to start with some other traffic violation first. That secondary-enforcement design is one reason a lot of distracted driving crashes never carry a phone-use ticket at all, even when a phone genuinely caused them.

Your claim doesn’t need his ticket

A civil claim runs on its own proof, separate from whatever the officer decided to write up. Carrier records showing a call, text, or data session at the moment of impact carry real weight, and a witness who watched the driver’s head drop before the crash adds to that picture. While memories hold and camera footage still exists, the crash-scene checklist threads through what to note before it’s gone — and that list matters even more here, since a distraction claim often rests on details nobody wrote into the police report.

Shared blame trims a claim, it doesn’t kill one

If part of the crash traces back to something you did, Missouri knocks that percentage off the total rather than throwing out the case. A driver who was on the phone doesn’t get a pass just because you also share some fault; the two questions get weighed separately, and your claim survives either way.

The clock behind all of it

Missouri gives you a five-year limit to bring an injury claim, but phone records don’t sit in a carrier’s system nearly that long. The statute of limitations guide touches on what that legal deadline covers; the evidence deadline that actually threatens a distracted driving case usually arrives first.

Send in what happened, and let an attorney who works independently here in Missouri tell you what your claim is worth.

The law finally has a name for this habit. Proving it still falls to you, and the sooner you start, the more there is to find.