Prior to 2019, texting and driving was a secondary offense. This means that if you’re pulled over for something else and the police officers saw that you were texting and driving, they could give you a citation for texting and driving in addition to that primary offense. In 2019, things changed, and texting and driving itself became a primary offense, which means that you could be pulled over and cited for it on its own if a police officer saw you doing it. So in Florida, while you’re driving you cannot enter into your phone or any sort of personal device, letters, or numbers for the purposes of non-verbal communication, meaning texting emailing, or even Google searches. That would be a primary offense and that would be a violation of the texting and driving law. You can still use your phone to dial a phone number and hold the phone up to your ear and talk, and you can use it for navigation purposes. Now this applies to all roads except for areas where there is a school zone or a work zone. In school zones and work zones you cannot even use your phone to dial a phone number to call somebody or type something in for navigation. You cannot pick your phone up at all and use it in those areas that would be a primary violation. So again in Florida, no texting and driving and putting letters and numbers or non-verbal communication and in school zones don’t even pick it up to make a phone call that would be a violation. If you have any further questions feel free to give us a call.
