Texting-While-Driving Penalties Harshest In Alaska, Weakest In Virginia

What could set you back more than $10,000, put you in prison for up to a year, cause you to drive the length of an entire football field basically blindfolded, and increase your insurance rates by around 10 percent in some states? Using your phone to read and send text messages while driving.

But in some states, the penalties for using your phone while driving are much more serious than in others. A new study looking at statewide texting-while-driving bans ranks the five harshest and five weakest statewide penalties for shooting off a text from behind the wheel.

According to the study, the following states had the harshest and weakest maximum penalties for a first offense:

Harshest:

Alaska

Utah

Maine

Wisconsin

New York

Weakest:

Virginia

Iowa

Indiana

Delaware

Pennsylvania

Where a state landed in the rankings depended on the fine size, possible jail time, enforcement guidelines, and whether a texting violation is considered a moving violation that will add points to a driver's record.

The harshest statewide ban was in Alaska, where the maximum penalty for a first offense is a $10,000 fine and a one-year prison sentence if the incident wasn't related to an accident with injuries. The weakest ban was in Virginia, where a fine for texting while driving is currently only $20.

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