In some recent years, distracted driving has caused more deaths on Ontario roads than impaired driving. The province has responded with some of the toughest distracted-driving laws in Canada, and they land hardest on new drivers. If you are working toward your licence, this is one rule where a single lapse can cost you months. Here is what the law actually says.<\/p>\n
While you are driving, you cannot hold or use a hand-held device. That means no texting, no scrolling, no holding your phone to talk, no punching an address into a phone in your hand. It applies even when you are stopped at a red light or in traffic, because you are still in control of a vehicle on the road. Hands-free use through a mounted device or voice commands is allowed, but the safest habit is to leave the phone alone entirely.<\/p>\n
For fully licensed drivers, a distracted-driving conviction brings a fine, demerit points, and a licence suspension. For novice drivers in the graduated licensing system, the consequences escalate faster: distracted-driving convictions carry escalating suspensions, and enough of them can remove you from the program. New drivers are exactly the group most likely to be tempted by a phone and least equipped to recover from the split-second a glance costs, so the law treats it seriously. Check the current novice-driver penalties on the official Ontario distracted-driving page<\/a>, because they increase over time.<\/p>\n The hand-held law targets devices, but distracted driving is broader than that. Eating, grooming, reaching for something on the floor, or being lost in a heated conversation can all pull your attention off the road, and if it affects your driving, an officer can charge you with careless driving. The test, and the road, reward drivers who keep their eyes up and their focus forward.<\/p>\n No message is worth your licence or someone’s life, and for a new driver the maths is even starker, because the penalties are built to end your progress. Keep the phone down and your eyes up. Distracted-driving rules show up on the G1, and to study them alongside the rest of the test, FreeG1<\/a> is free and covers everything.<\/p>\n Keep reading:<\/strong> how demerit points work<\/a> and the zero-tolerance rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sources: Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Ontario.ca distracted-driving rules. Confirm current penalties on the official page. Last reviewed July 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ontario’s hand-held device law, why it hits novice drivers hardest with escalating suspensions, what counts as distracted beyond phones, and the habits that keep you legal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[33,4,6,7,34],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guides","tag-distracted-driving","tag-g1-test","tag-new-drivers","tag-ontario","tag-phone-laws"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeg1.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}It is not only phones<\/h2>\n
The habits that keep you legal and safe<\/h2>\n
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The bottom line<\/h2>\n