

State-by-State: Driving Laws Across the Nation

The details of your state’s driving laws might not be a major influence on the events of your daily life, but if you or your teenager is getting a license, you want to make calls or text while driving, or your elderly parents are losing their motor skills, knowledge of the relevant regulations becomes essential.

Decades ago, the federal government imposed a de facto national drinking age and laws against drunk driving by threatening to withhold federal highway funding from states that did not comply with the wishes of Congress. That same pressure has not yet been implemented when it comes to distracted driving, which last year caused 6,000 deaths and nearly 500,000 injuries nationwide. So when it comes to distracted driving and laws regulating teen drivers, there is significant state-by-state variation.

To help parse this information and learn about your own state’s laws with regard to distracted driving and teen regulations, we put together an interactive map breaking down unique driving laws from each state. Looking at driver laws nationwide, we found that the trend is moving toward stricter graduated license laws for teen drivers, and heightened regulations against distracted driving.

Scroll over this interactive map to see the details of your state’s driving laws and how they compare to others.