Massachusetts Personal Injury News
Will Getting a Ticket for Texting Raise Your Car Insurance?
The texting ban in Massachusetts has been in effect nearly a month, making the state the 30th in the country to prohibit the use of electronic mobile devices to send or receive messages while driving. One question on some drivers’ minds centers on whether a ticket for texting while you drive will raise your car insurance premium or not.
With this new law, police are able to stop and ticket a driver who is texting. The driver could potentially face a “reckless” offense which would carry with it a higher fine to pay and will ultimately impact the insurance premium.
There is also a criminal offense component to the new texting ban, referred to as “negligent operation and injury from mobile phone use,” which would apply to a driver who damaged property or caused bodily injury to a person while texting and driving. If a junior operator was convicted of this offense, the driver would face a 6-month suspension of his license. For drivers 18 and over, this conviction would result in a 2-month suspension. This type of criminal conviction is likely to be added as a surcharge on the driver’s premium.
We’ve all heard it before, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. So keep your phone out of sight and out of mind for your safety (or over the fear of your car insurance premiums increasing) because you can always call that someone back.
