ST. LOUIS – A new provision in Missouri’s hands-free law took effect at the start of 2025, allowing law enforcement to issue citations instead of just warnings for violating the law.
Although the new provision has been in effect for nearly two weeks, questions persist about how officers verify hands-free violations and the rights of both drivers and law enforcement during traffic stops tied to a violation.
A key concern for many is whether officers can legally take or access a driver’s phone to confirm a violation.
To clarify the updated enforcement rules, FOX 2 reached out to the Missouri State Highway Patrol for answers. In a recent Zoom interview, MSHP Cpl. Dallas Thompson from the Public Information and Education Division provided answers to some of these pressing questions.
What’s the difference with Missouri’s hands-free law this year compared to when it was first enacted in August 2023?
DT: “Basically, for the last year and a half, we’ve kind of been in an educational phase of it, just trying to get the word out what the new law is and the regulations of what you can and can’t do with your phone while you’re inside your vehicle. We’ve given out statewide, over that time period, a little over 1,500 warnings for violations. But now, starting after January 1, we can enforce that and start issuing citations for this violation.
With citations now in effect, what kind of things are officers or law enforcement looking into whether a hands-free violation could lead to a citation?
DT: “The law states that you can’t hold or support a cell phone in your hands while you’re driving. So just physically having that phone in your hands is a violation. In the St. Louis area, especially when we’re on the interstate and cars are coming by us and passing, we can look over and see that the phone is in their hands. We can see them scrolling on the phone, or we can see them typing on the phone as they passed by us.”
“So that is a violation. It’s not a primary violation for just stopping them from doing that alone. We have to have probable cause of another traffic violation. [Whether] it’s a speed, lane turn, signal, or equipment violation, there’s all kinds of traffic violations out there. But once we observe one of those violations, then we can make that traffic stop and also enforce the hands-free violation.”
Say a traffic stop is underway and an officer has probable cause to believe that there is a hands-free violation. How does law enforcement go about verifying that?
DT: “Well, this is a secondary violation, so it’s much like the seat belt law. We’re probably going to have to visually see that violation before we try to enforce it. So we’re probably going to have to see them on the phone or doing something with their phone in their hand at the same time we saw the traffic violation occur.”
“If we believe that and they deny that they were on the phone, we’ll first of all tell them, ‘Well, I visually saw you myself’ with the violation. But if they still won’t want to [acknowledge] that, we can ask, ‘Were you on your phone?’ If they say, ‘No,’ you can say, ‘Would you care to show us proof on the phone that you weren’t on your text or something’ at that point of time.”
“We can’t force them to give us their phone. People can be safe with that. We’re not going to take someone’s phone, go back to our patrol cars, [and] start scrolling through it to try to find incriminating evidence that they were on the phone at the time of that traffic stop. It’s going to be actually much like the seatbelt violation. We’re probably going to visually see it before we try to enforce it.”
If an officer has probable cause of a hands-free violation, how does the officer proceed if the driver in question of the violation is denying they were on their phone? What other steps can be taken?
DT: “We’re probably going to visually see [the violation]. And if they [the driver] still deny it, and we did see it, we can still enforce that. Then they’ll have a court date, and they can argue that in court at that time. If they still deny it, then we’ll just go ahead and enforce it because we saw it. And they can take that up with the judge at another time.”
Since the officer can’t take a person’s phone for a hands-free violation alone, as the investigation unfolds over a citation, can officers access metadata to confirm if the driver in question may have been on their phone?
DT: “We’re probably not going to go into that on a normal traffic stop for a traffic violation. Now, if we investigate a crash and we believe that they were on the phone and someone was seriously or fatally injured, we can seize those phones. We can apply for a search warrant through the court to go through that phone to get the information off of it at that time to prove if they were on the phone or not.”
“But just for your normal traffic stop for a traffic violation, if we didn’t visually see the violation, we’re not going to that in-depth. It is an infraction like the seat belt violation, so we’re not going to spend hours and hours and days and days to try to prove that you were on your phone for an infraction. But if someone was seriously injured or killed, then yes, we are going to take that very seriously. We will get search warrants or apply for search warrants and try to get that information from the phones then.”
What kind of challenges may still exist with enforcing the hands-free law as far as officer involvement and issuing citations?
DT: “I don’t see many challenges. You’re going to be visually observed, especially in the St. Louis region, where we got multiple lanes of traffic. I drive up there every day, and I get passed by vehicles every day. As they’re passing by me, I see them on their phones in their hand, and they’re scrolling, typing, or watching videos as they’re driving down the road.”
“I don’t see very much of a challenge in enforcing it because we’re going to visually see those violations. We’re just going to try to take it day by day, and hopefully people just make good decisions and just put the phone down and not violate this new law.”
With visually seeing a phone violation, are there any differences in daytime as opposed to nighttime?
DT: “There might be a little more concerns, but those phones light up. So as they come past us, we’re probably going to see the screen lit up on that phone, and if we observe that traffic violation, we can stop it and address it just like we would during the day.”