Austin Car Insurance Protection and Driving Safely

No texting while driving will protect you from a ticket as much as having valid car insurance in Austin.

No texting in the Lone Star State’s capital of Austin.

There are just some cities that try to get things done faster than the rest of the state, and Austin, Texas is one of them. While Austin still abides by the statewide insurance laws without adding any of their own flair to them, they refuse to stand by and let drivers distracted by their cell phones continue to cause car accidents.

With the mounds of evidence piling up around the nation showing how dangerous texting is, you have to applaud Austin for being proactive about this and not wait for the state to step in and do something.

Austin Minimum Insurance Requirements

When driving through Austin, or any part of Texas for that matter, you need to be insured with no less than the following limits:

• $30,000 in bodily injury coverage for a single person for medical expenses
• $60,000 in bodily injury coverage for two or more people for medical expenses
• $25,000 in property damage coverage

These coverages are enforced statewide and are verified electronically by law enforcement through TexasSure. Police officers use this system to verify if you really do have insurance or not when they pull you over.

If you don’t have insurance, you could be seeing a fine from $175 to $1,000, as well as the impoundment of your car and the suspension of your license.

No Texting in Austin

The state of Texas is very lax in its cell phone laws. There are a small handful of laws that prohibit certain uses of your cell phone when driving, but no blanket wide ban. The following are the only cell phone restrictions in the state of Texas:

New drivers with permits are not allowed to use cell phones, unless it’s a hands-free device, the first 6 months they are driving.

Drivers under the age 18 are not allowed to use any wireless communication device.

School bus drivers are not allowed to use cell phones while driving, but only if children are present.

No driver is allowed to hold a cell phone and talk when in a school crossing zone.

Austin however, is one of 23 other cities in the entire state of Texas to ban texting while driving. So if you are used to texting while driving in other parts of the state you drive in Austin you need to do two things. First, you need to stop texting while driving no matter where you are. Illegal or not it is dangerous, and study after study has clearly shown this.

Second, don’t get caught texting in Austin unless you are prepared financially for the aftermath of getting pulled over.

(Texas Department of Transportation)