In early June 2025, an online rumor purported that a "touch law" — a law banning the use of handheld cellphones while operating a vehicle — was going into effect across 31 U.S. states as of June 5, 2025.
The claim was shared across social media platforms like Facebook (archived) and especially TikTok (archived, archived), with users offering advice to their followers about staying safe and vigilant while driving. The widespread nature of the rumor led some Snopes readers to reach out to us via email questioning its veracity.
However, the claim that a "touch law" went into effect in 31 U.S. states on June 5, 2025, is mostly false. Although the 31 states featured in the social media posts do, in fact, have such laws, it was only Pennsylvania's that went into effect on that date.
The Pennsylvania law was dubbed "Paul Miller's Law," named after a man "who was tragically killed in a crash with a tractor trailer in 2010 in Monroe County, as the result of a distracted driver who reached for their phone while driving," according to a news release issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
An article on the online tabloid website The U.S. Sun that listed "31 states where drivers face 'touch law'" was published in late May 2025. When combined with timely reports about the Pennsylvania law going into effect, it appeared to result in some of some users conflating the new law with statutes already in place in other states.
The other states' "touch laws," typically referred to as "distracted driving" or "hands-free" laws, have been in effect for varying lengths of time since as far back as 2008.
Below are the 30 other states listed in The U.S. Sun article with links to each state's respective law or to state government pages about their version of the law.
An overview of distracted driving laws on the Governors Highway Safety Association website, a nonprofit organization seeking to improve traffic safety and influence national policy, confirmed that these 31 states, along with "D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands," have laws in effect that "prohibit all drivers from using handheld cellphones while driving."
The nonprofit also pointed out that "all but Alabama and Missouri are primary enforcement laws," meaning a law-enforcement officer can cite a driver for a violation without requiring any other offense to make a traffic stop.
So while it is true that the 31 states in question have laws prohibiting the use of handheld cellphones while driving, it is false to claim that their laws all went into effect on June 5, 2025.