May 19, 2025
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Paul Miller's Law will take effect in Pennsylvania on June 5, banning drivers from using cellphones and other handheld electronic devices in the car. After a year of police issuing violators written warnings, there will be $50 fines and court costs for breaking the law.
Starting in June, drivers in Pennsylvania will be banned from using cellphones and all other handheld electronic devices while behind the wheel. The law expands the state's existing ban on texting while driving, and next year motorists will face fines for violating the updated rules of the road.
The new regulation is named after Paul Miller, a 21-year-old man who was killed in a crash with a distracted tractor-trailer driver in Monroe County in 2010. The state banned texting while driving two years later, but Miller's mother spent more than a decade advocating for lawmakers to further restrict cellphone use in the car. Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the bill into law last June.
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“I have met too many people with injuries they’ll live with for the rest of their lives because they were hit by a distracted driver – and too many families that have an empty seat at the dinner table because of distracted driving," Shapiro said when he signed the bill.
When the law takes effect June 5, all use of handheld electronic devices will be prohibited while driving — including while stopped at red lights or stuck in traffic. If drivers have to use more than a single button on a device, they'll be breaking the law
Banned uses of handheld electronics now extend to using the internet, playing games, taking photos and videos, and making posts on social media. That's on top of the ban on writing and reading text messages and emails. And for voice calls, propping a cellphone between the shoulder and ear to talk on the phone is not an exception.
Hands-free technology that connects devices to cars will be permitted to allow drivers to make calls, use GPS and listen to music on the road. The only exceptions for handheld devices are if drivers pull off the road and are stationary in safe locations, or if holding the device is necessary to communicate with police and emergency services.
For any other reason, using a handheld device while driving will be considered a primary offense. That means police can pull drivers over for breaking the law even if they have not violated any other laws. The earlier ban on texting while driving also treated violations as primary offenses. If drivers are convicted of homicide by vehicle and driving while distracted, they could face sentences up to an additional five years in prison.
For the first year under the new law, police will only issue violators written warnings. Starting June 5, 2026, the penalty will be a $50 fine and associated court costs that bring the total to about $200.
Distracted driving was Pennsylvania's leading cause of car crashes in 2023, accounting for more than 11,000 accidents and 65 deaths, according to data from the Governors Highway Safety Association.
With the new law, Pennsylvania is one of 30 states that ban drivers from using handheld electronic devices. When Shapiro signed the bill, Miller's mom said she fulfilled her promise to her son.
“My son did everything right – and somebody else was the one who was the cause of my son's demise," she said. "I whispered in the ear of my son at the morgue – who I couldn't even identify, I didn't even know that it was him, he was that bad – but I whispered in his ear that when I found out what had caused that crash, I would fight for change."
