Nearly 10,000 crashes involving distracted driving were reported across Pennsylvania in 2024, resulting in more than 6,000 injuries and 49 deaths. PennDOT also notes that distracted driving crashes are likely underreported because many drivers do not admit they were distracted before the collision.
After a crash, people often replay the same moment over and over.
“I looked over for a second.”
“I thought they were looking down.”
“Didn’t they have a phone in their hand?”
Those questions do not always have obvious answers. Sometimes a witness notices a driver looking away from the road. Sometimes a nearby business has surveillance footage. Other times, people wonder whether cellphone records could settle the issue.
Phone records can be valuable evidence, but they do not always tell the whole story. A carrier record showing a call or certain text-message activity may help establish a timeline, yet that information is usually compared with other evidence before conclusions are drawn about what happened.
This article explains when phone records may become part of a Pennsylvania distracted driving case, what they can and cannot show, and how they may affect a personal injury claim after a car accident.
Key Takeaways: Can Phone Records Help Prove Distracted Driving in Pennsylvania?
- Phone records may support a distracted driving claim, but they usually work best alongside other evidence.
- Pennsylvania’s handheld phone law makes cellphone use an important issue during many crash investigations.
- Attorneys generally obtain another driver’s phone records through the legal discovery process rather than by requesting them directly from a wireless carrier.
- Witnesses, surveillance footage, police observations, and crash reconstruction may all strengthen a distracted driving claim.
- Proving phone use is only one part of a Pennsylvania personal injury case; liability depends on all of the available evidence.
What Counts as Distracted Driving in Pennsylvania?
Most people associate distracted driving with texting, but many other activities can take a driver’s attention away from the road.
A driver may become distracted by reading a notification, scrolling through music, entering an address into a navigation app, holding a phone during a conversation, eating behind the wheel, or looking away from traffic long enough to miss changing road conditions. The common thread is that something pulls the driver’s attention away from operating the vehicle safely.
Pennsylvania recently expanded its distracted driving law through Paul Miller’s Law.
Effective June 5, 2025, drivers may not use a handheld interactive mobile device while operating a vehicle, even when temporarily stopped in traffic or at a red light. Police issued written warnings during the law’s first 12 months. Beginning June 6, 2026, law enforcement may issue summary citations carrying a $50 fine, in addition to court costs and other applicable fees. The law allows limited exceptions, including certain communications with emergency responders.
Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3316.1, prohibited use includes holding an interactive mobile device with at least one hand, supporting it with another part of the body, pressing more than one button to dial or answer it, or reaching for it in a way that takes the driver out of a seated, seat-belted position. Hands-free technology remains permissible when used within the statute’s limits.
A traffic citation, however, does not automatically answer who caused a crash. Investigators still examine how the collision occurred, whether the distraction contributed to it, and what evidence supports those conclusions.
How to Prove a Driver Was Distracted
A carrier record may help establish when a call or certain text-message activity occurred. It usually cannot answer who was holding the phone, what the person was looking at, or whether the activity contributed to the crash.
That is why distracted driving investigations rarely rely on one source of evidence. Investigators compare multiple pieces of information to see whether they point to the same sequence of events.
How the timeline may unfold:
10 seconds before the crash
→ A witness notices the driver looking toward their lap.
The moment of impact
→ A nearby camera records the vehicle drifting across the center line.
A few minutes later
→ Responding officers document observations, statements, and the position of the vehicles.
Days or weeks later
→ Phone records, surveillance footage, or other electronic evidence may be preserved or pursued through an appropriate legal process if they are relevant to the claim.
When those events line up, the timeline becomes much stronger than any single piece of evidence standing on its own.
Phone records also are not something an attorney can simply request from another driver’s wireless carrier. After a civil lawsuit is filed, relevant records may be pursued through the discovery process. Depending on who controls the information, this may include requests for production or a properly authorized subpoena for documents held by a nonparty. Courts may limit requests that are overly broad, burdensome, protected by law, or unrelated to the crash. Federal privacy law may also affect whether a service provider can disclose the contents of electronic communications.
The timing matters, too. A phone carrier may retain certain records for a limited period under its own business practices, and different providers keep different categories of information for different lengths of time. Waiting too long to preserve potentially relevant evidence can make a later investigation more difficult, even though the specific records available vary from one case to another.
What Evidence Can Show Phone Use or Inattention?
Phone records are often discussed as though they reveal everything that happened before a crash. In practice, carrier records answer a much narrower set of questions.
Carrier records may help show:
- when certain calls began or ended;
- when some SMS or MMS messages were sent or received; and
- certain periods of network activity maintained by the carrier.
Carrier records generally do not show:
- who was physically using the phone;
- whether the driver viewed an incoming message;
- what someone was reading on the screen;
- whether the person was scrolling through social media;
- whether a navigation or music app was open; or
- whether the phone was in the driver’s hand or resting elsewhere in the vehicle.
Data stored on the phone itself, in an application, or in a cloud account may provide different information. Messages sent through services such as iMessage, WhatsApp, or social-media applications may not appear in ordinary carrier records in the same way as conventional calls or SMS messages.
That is one reason a distracted driving claim often depends on evidence beyond the phone bill itself.
A convenience store security camera may capture a driver holding a device before entering an intersection. A dash camera may show a vehicle drifting across the lane for several seconds before impact. A passenger may remember hearing a message notification immediately before the collision. Each source contributes different information, and together they may create a clearer account of what happened.
Pennsylvania’s approach to distracted driving reflects this broader view. Before Paul Miller’s Law expanded the prohibition on handheld phone use, the state already prohibited drivers from sending, reading, or writing text-based communications while operating a moving vehicle under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3316.
When the activity involves holding or otherwise using the device in a way covered by the newer statute, prohibited conduct may include:
- making or answering handheld calls;
- reading notifications;
- using apps;
- entering GPS directions; and
- browsing or scrolling on the device.
For an injured person, the goal is not to prove that someone owned a cellphone or even used one earlier that day. That is why these cases are not decided by a phone bill alone. The answers usually come from comparing different pieces of evidence until the timeline starts to make sense.
How Comparative Negligence Can Affect the Claim
Finding evidence of distracted driving is an important step, but it is not the final step in a Pennsylvania personal injury claim.
Courts also examine how each driver’s actions contributed to the crash. In some collisions, responsibility may be straightforward. In others, more than one driver may have made a mistake.
Consider a few examples:
- A driver is looking at a cellphone and runs a red light.
- A driver is using a handheld phone, but the other vehicle is traveling well above the speed limit.
- A driver glances at a navigation app, and another motorist makes an unsafe lane change at the same time.
Each situation raises different questions about fault. The investigation looks at the entire sequence of events, not one fact viewed in isolation.
Pennsylvania follows a modified comparative negligence rule under 42 Pa.C.S. § 7102. An injured person may recover damages if they are 50% or less responsible for the accident. Any recovery is reduced by that person’s percentage of fault. If the injured person’s share of fault is greater than 50%, Pennsylvania law generally bars recovery.
That is one reason phone records, witness testimony, crash reconstruction, and other evidence matter. They help explain how the collision unfolded and whether distracted driving played a meaningful role in causing it.
What Damages May Be Available After a Distracted Driving Crash?
A distracted driving collision can affect far more than the repair bill for a damaged vehicle. Some losses appear immediately. Others become clear only after medical treatment begins or time away from work adds up.
Instead of arriving all at once, damages often fall into three stages.
- Immediately after the crash
Medical evaluations, ambulance transportation, emergency treatment, diagnostic imaging, and vehicle repairs or replacement often create the first financial losses.
- During recovery
As treatment continues, people may miss work, attend physical therapy, fill prescriptions, or need follow-up appointments. Those expenses, together with lost wages, can become part of a personal injury claim when supported by the evidence.
- Looking ahead
Some injuries require ongoing care or permanently affect a person’s ability to work and carry out daily activities. Depending on the facts of the case, Pennsylvania law may allow recovery for future medical expenses, diminished earning capacity, pain and suffering, and other legally recognized losses.
However, Pennsylvania’s limited-tort rules may restrict compensation for pain and suffering and other noneconomic losses unless the injured person suffered a serious injury or another statutory exception applies.
The value of a claim depends on the specific facts, the available evidence, the applicable insurance coverage, and the nature of the injuries. Two crashes that appear similar at first can result in very different compensation amounts because no two recoveries follow the same course.
What to Do After a Distracted Driver Accident
If you believe the other driver was looking at a phone before the crash, the goal is not to prove it yourself. The goal is to avoid losing evidence that may already exist.
Three questions can help you decide what to preserve.
Could someone else have recorded the crash?
Nearby businesses, homes, buses, or traffic cameras may have captured part of what happened. Video systems often overwrite older footage, so identifying potential cameras early can be helpful.
Who else saw what happened?
Witnesses do not stay at the scene forever. If someone stopped to help or spoke with police, their observations may become important later, especially if they noticed the other driver looking away from the road.
Could electronic evidence disappear?
Phone records, dash camera files, surveillance video, and some vehicle data are not always stored indefinitely. If those records may become important, an attorney may send an evidence preservation letter asking the person or business controlling them to preserve the material before it is deleted or overwritten. Additional legal procedures may be required to obtain the evidence, and a private preservation request does not necessarily compel a wireless carrier or service provider to retain or disclose particular records.
You do not have to know whether phone records exist before speaking with an attorney. A conversation about what happened can help identify what evidence may still be available and what steps should be taken before important information disappears.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an attorney get another driver’s phone records after a Pennsylvania car accident?
Sometimes. Phone records generally are not released simply because someone asks for them. After a civil lawsuit is filed, relevant records may be requested through the discovery process or another lawful court procedure. Whether particular records must be produced depends on who controls them, their relevance, the scope of the request, and applicable privacy laws.
Can phone records prove the other driver was texting?
Not by themselves in most cases. Carrier records may show when certain text-message activity occurred, but they typically do not establish who used the phone, whether the driver viewed an incoming message, or whether the activity contributed to the crash.
What if the other driver deleted text messages?
Deleting messages from a phone does not necessarily eliminate every related source of evidence. Depending on the circumstances, a copy may remain on another device, in a backup, in an account controlled by the user, or on the recipient’s phone. A wireless carrier may retain limited transaction information for certain communications, but it should not be assumed that the carrier has retained the contents of the messages. Witness statements, surveillance video, crash reconstruction, and vehicle data may also help establish what happened.
Can I still have a personal injury claim if both drivers made mistakes?
Possibly. Pennsylvania follows a modified comparative negligence rule, so more than one person may share responsibility for the same collision. Whether an injured person may recover damages depends on the specific facts and each party’s percentage of fault.
Sort Through the Details With Brandon J. Broderick
Cellphone use has changed the way car accidents are investigated. A timestamp, a surveillance camera, or a witness who noticed something unusual can all become part of the timeline months after the vehicles leave the roadway.
The location of those records can matter as much as the records themselves. If you would like to discuss your accident, call Brandon J. Broderick, Attorney at Law at (877) 959-0981. We are available 24/7 and can explain what evidence may still exist. Contact us today.