According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (the NHTSA), South Dakota roads are the nation’s ninth most dangerous. Despite this dubious distinction, the state’s legislature dragged its feet for years before it finally passed a statewide texting and driving law. Nevertheless, individual South Dakota localities have been passing distracted driving laws for years.
Distracted Driving Restrictions
In 2014, South Dakota became one of the last states in the nation to ban texting while driving. The fine for this offense is $100. The use of all cell phones is also banned for drivers on learner’s or intermediate licenses, but not for ordinary drivers on unrestricted licenses. Both offenses are secondary – the officer may not cite you for the offense unless he observes you violating another law first.
Cities and counties that have enacted their own distracted driving ordinances include:
- Aberdeen
- Box Elder
- Brookings
- Huron
- Mitchell
- Rapid City
- Sioux Falls
- Vermillion
- Watertown
The legal validity of these local ordinances is questionable in the face of contrary state law, if the municipal ordinance is more restrictive or imposes harsher punishments than state law.
In the Event of an Accident
The possible consequences of distracted driving in South Dakota exceed a mere traffic citation. If you cause an accident that way, you could be sued by an injured party (or on behalf of a deceased party). If the injured party can prove that you caused the accident by violating South Dakota’s distracted driving law, the burden of proof will shift to you.
This means that you will have to prove that your actions were not negligent under the circumstances, rather than the other party having to prove that you were negligent. If you are ultimately held liable, you may accident may even have to pay damages for injuries suffered by a rescuer.
A few other tips are worth noting:
- Employers beware! If your employee drives for you and you are in the habit of texting him while he is on duty (even concerning work-related matters), your company could be held jointly liable for any accident under the common law doctrine of respondeat superior. You might also he held liable in your own right.
- In South Dakota, punitive damages (in addition to the normal compensatory damages) are available in wrongful death cases, if the driver’s distracted driving conduct was outrageous enough under the circumstances of the accident.
- Even if the accident was your fault, you could be excused from paying damages if the other driver was at fault and if his fault amounted to anything more than “slight negligence”.
Possible Criminal Penalties
In extreme cases, you could actually be arrested for distracted driving. If you kill someone through “recklessness”, for example, you could be arrested for voluntary manslaughter. If you kill someone through extreme negligence, you could be arrested for involuntary manslaughter. Both of these offenses are prison felonies in South Dakota. The tricky part is that there is no formal legal dividing line between ordinary civil negligence (which could cost you a lot of money) and criminal negligence (which could result in a prison sentence).
– Updated through September 1, 2016