You prove distracted driving with evidence of what the other driver was doing in the seconds before impact. Phone records, witness accounts, the responding officer’s notes, dashcam or nearby security footage, and accident reconstruction each capture part of that picture. Together, they can show where the driver’s attention was.
It helps that Pennsylvania now treats holding a phone while driving as a citable offense statewide. Sorting through all of this while you’re hurt and fielding calls from an insurance company is a lot to carry. Silver & Silver’s car accident lawyers serving Gladwyne can explain what a distracted driving accident claim involves and which evidence tends to matter.
What Pennsylvania’s Distracted Driving Laws Cover
Since June 5, 2025, Pennsylvania has enforced a hand-held device ban under Paul Miller’s Law. That means you can’t hold a phone or another device while you drive, or prop one against your shoulder.
Dialing or answering has to take a single button, so tapping through a screen isn’t allowed, and neither is leaning out of your seat belt to grab your phone. A violation is a summary offense carrying a $50 fine, with a narrow exception for emergency calls.
For the law’s first year, officers issued warnings instead of tickets. That period ended June 5, 2026, and the fine now applies. Since 2012, an older and narrower law has barred sending, reading, or writing a text-based communication while a vehicle is in motion. A citation under either section doesn’t settle a civil claim on its own, but it becomes part of the record of what happened.
The Crash Evidence That Points to Distraction
Every driver owes everyone else on the road a duty of reasonable care, and evidence of distraction is one common way to show that duty was broken. That evidence comes from ordinary sources, and each one answers a different question about the moments before the collision.
Crash evidence in a distraction claim typically includes:
- Phone records showing call and message activity around the time of the crash
- Accounts from other drivers, passengers, or people nearby who saw the driver looking down
- The responding officer’s observations and any citation issued at the scene
- Dashcam video, or footage from a nearby business or traffic camera
- Accident reconstruction, which reads skid marks and vehicle damage for signs a driver never braked
Some of that evidence disappears quickly. Security cameras often record over themselves within days, and memories of a few chaotic seconds fade. That’s why requests for footage and records usually need to go out in the first weeks after a crash.
How Distraction Evidence Affects What You Recover
Pennsylvania follows a rule called modified comparative negligence. Your recovery is reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to you, and it’s barred entirely if you’re found more than 50% at fault. Evidence of distraction does more than explain what caused the crash. It can move the percentage each driver carries, and with it what you’re able to recover.
Those percentages apply to real money, and a personal injury claim accounts for medical expenses, lost wages, reduced future earning capacity, and pain and suffering. Most Pennsylvania injury claims also carry a two-year deadline from the date of injury, and this evidence is easiest to gather long before that window closes.
What the Record Can Still Tell You
You don’t need to know which records exist, or how to request them, before you ask for help. Wherever in Gladwyne the crash happened, on a Lower Merion Township side street or a busy commuter route, the same hand-held rules were in force. Start with the crash report number, photos from the scene, the names of anyone who stopped, and what you remember seeing the other driver do.
Being hurt because another driver chose a screen over the road is hard to make peace with, especially while your weeks are filled with appointments and missed work. Those few seconds usually leave some kind of record, and finding it isn’t on you alone. For 45 years, Silver & Silver has represented injured people across Pennsylvania in personal injury claims. The firm also handles Social Security Disability matters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Contact us today to learn more. Silver & Silver can explain which records tend to matter in a distracted driving claim and how quickly they have to be requested.
Disclosure:
This website is designed to provide only general information. The information presented on this website is not formal legal advice. You should not rely on any general information from any source for making legal decisions. Each legal matter is unique and requires specific attention from a qualified attorney. Unless a representation agreement has been signed with the Law Offices of Silver and Silver, we are not your legal representatives.
