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Starting Jan. 1, 2025, Missouri will begin enforcing its hands-free law.
Drivers who are seen physically using their mobile devices while driving will be penalized.
Stephany Bening's husband was killed May 13, 2021, by a distracted driver. Since then, she has worked tirelessly to bring change to Missouri.
"My husband, on May 13, 2021, was driving southbound on I-49, going to the lake, and a tote had blown out of the back of the boat," Bening recalled. "He went to retrieve it, and a lady was looking down on her cell phone and did not see him in the road until after she killed him."
Following her husband's death, Bening became involved with the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety and began to advocate for a hands-free law in Missouri.
Due to her efforts and multiple pleas to lawmakers, Senate Bill 398, known as the Siddens Bening Hands-Free Law, went into effect last year, requiring hands-free phone use for all drivers and making texting while driving illegal.
"The bottom line is, we can stay here and sulk all day long, but at the end of the day, I want my husband's legacy to live on," Bening said. "My husband was an amazing, godly man who loved God, loved his family and would do anything for his kids, and I just want his legacy to live on."
With the start of the new year, if a driver is pulled over for other traffic violations but is believed to have also been on their phone, they will be ticketed for phone use.
Fines start at $150 for a first conviction and up to $500 for a third offense. Drivers can also face criminal charges for crashes involving property damage, injury or death.
The law doesn’t prohibit drivers from using their phones through hands-free options such as Bluetooth.
"No one goes out intending for their simple distraction — that many of us are guilty of on a day-to-day basis — to turn into something tragic, but when it does, both parties — the person [who] loses their life and the one that took it — are drastically affected, and we want to eliminate that," said Missouri State Highway Patrol Cpl. Justin C. Ewing.
According to a report by Cambridge Mobile Telematics, in partnership with the Missouri Department of Transportation and AAA Missouri, since the law's introduction, more than 1,000 crashes have been prevented.
The report also claimed it has reduced distracted driving in Missouri by 5.1% while helping people avoid hundreds of injury crashes and saving $22 million in economic damages.
"The day after my husband's accident, I told God, 'If you're gonna let me walk this road, I need to see your fingerprints, and I need to know where you are and I need to see you move,'" Bening said. "And I have seen the Lord move through everything, even through being able to use our story to change Missouri law has been amazing."
The Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety reported 106 people in Missouri were killed in 2023 because of distracted driving.