By Alex Stalvey, leader of the Personal Injury Practice Group at Bannister, Wyatt & Stalvey
If you live in the Upstate, you’ve probably seen it: the driver next to you drifting over the line while staring at their phone.
Distracted driving has become so common that many people forget how dangerous it is, until it’s too late.
I’m a personal injury attorney here in South Carolina. I meet with people every day whose lives have been changed forever because of an accident. Some walk away with injuries they’ll recover from. Others never walk again. And in far too many cases, a family has lost someone entirely.
South Carolina recently passed a new hands-free law (H.3276) addressing this issue, officially making holding a phone while driving illegal. But a lot of people are skeptical, and I understand why. On the surface, it sounds like another law that’s hard to enforce.
But here’s the message I share with all those skeptics.
First, this law gives victims and their families a clearer legal path to hold distracted drivers accountable. Before now, proving that a driver was using their phone was challenging. Now that handheld use is illegal, evidence like phone records, texts, and witness accounts will carry more weight in court.
Second, we’ve already seen this work in other states. Georgia passed a similar law in 2018. Since then, distracted driving convictions have quadrupled. But more importantly, deaths linked to distraction have fallen by more than 40 percent.
This law isn’t just about catching someone searching the internet at a red light. It’s about what happens after an accident when someone’s hurt, a life is changed, and the question becomes legal.