Kentucky Hands-Free Driving Rules

Kentucky still does not have a general hands-free driving law. Adult drivers may hold a phone to make a voice call. The restriction in force is the texting ban in KRS 189.292. Senate Bill 28 would have widened that rule, but its last recorded action in the 2026 session was a House Transportation referral on March 9, 2026, and it did not become law.

Handheld Call Rules

KRS 189.292(3)(c) lets a driver read, select, or enter a telephone number or name in order to make a phone call. Holding the phone to the ear for that call is not the texting offense. Civil negligence is a separate question: a driver still owes ordinary care to everyone on the road, including during a call the statute allows.

Drivers under 18 face a tighter rule. KRS 189.294 bars use of a personal communication device while the vehicle is in motion, “except to summon medical help or a law enforcement or public safety agency in an emergency situation.” Manually entering information into a phone’s GPS feature counts as use. A built-in or stand-alone vehicle navigation system does not.

Texting While Driving Ban

KRS 189.292(2) provides that no person shall, while operating a motor vehicle that is in motion on the traveled portion of a roadway, write, send, or read text-based communication using a personal communication device. The statute names text messages, instant messages, and electronic mail.

The exceptions are narrow: a GPS feature on the device, a navigation system built into the vehicle, entering a number to place a call, on-duty emergency vehicle operators, and a text that reports illegal activity, summons emergency services, or prevents injury to a person or property. House Bill 415 created the adult texting ban in 2010, and the current text took effect June 8, 2011.

Phone-Down Kentucky Act

Senate Bill 28, titled the Phone-Down Kentucky Act, would have repealed and reenacted KRS 189.292 to prohibit use of a “mobile electronic device” while driving, with listed exceptions, and would have amended KRS 189.294 and the penalty statute. The Senate passed it 31-7 on January 20, 2026. The House referred it to the Transportation Committee on March 9, 2026, the last action on the Legislative Research Commission bill record.

The introduced bill also called for courtesy warnings rather than citations through October 31, 2026. That provision never took effect because the act did not pass. Kentucky’s current rule remains the adult texting ban plus the under-18 device ban, not a general handheld ban.

Distracted Driving Data

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration treats distraction as attention taken from driving and given to another activity. Phone use is one form. Eating, passengers, and in-vehicle controls are others.

Distraction-affected accidents in 2024 killed 3,208 people and injured an estimated 315,167. Cellphone involvement was recorded in 404 fatal accidents, with 437 deaths, and 8% of fatal accidents that year were coded as distraction-affected. Police reports undercount phone use when the officer never sees the device.

Phone Use Evidence

A handheld call that KRS 189.292 allows can still be negligence if the driver failed to keep a proper lookout. Carrier call logs, text timestamps, data sessions, the accident report, nearby video, and an event data recorder download are the usual evidence of phone use. Those records are not kept indefinitely, and a preservation letter is the standard way to request that they be held.

An adjuster may argue that a legal handheld call defeats the case. The civil standard is ordinary care, not whether a citation was issued under KRS 189.292. Related errors that weaken a case are covered in mistakes after a car accident, and the insurer’s side of a fault dispute is explained in how insurance companies investigate car accident fault. Distracted driver accidents are part of the firm’s car accident cases.