Distracted driving
The Act builds a four-rung ladder and then, in a proviso, overrides it entirely for certain drivers and certain places. That override is not a fifth rung: a first-time offender it applies to pays the override figure, not the ladder's first.
The ladder
Four rungs, ending in revocation
← swipe to see the whole table →
| Offence | Fine | Also | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| First offence | ₱5,000 | — | STATUTE |
| Second offence | ₱10,000 | — | STATUTE |
| Third offence | ₱15,000 | 3-month licence suspension | STATUTE |
| Fourth offence | ₱20,000 | licence revocation | STATUTE |
The conduct this Act reaches is narrower than the phrase suggests, and narrower than most summaries of it. As the Act named beside the ladder is drafted, it is about using a communication or entertainment device while operating a vehicle — holding it, reading it, writing on it, watching something on it — rather than about inattention in general. On that reading, eating, reaching for something or turning to speak to a passenger are not this offence, whatever else they may be. If they produce dangerous driving they are dealt with as reckless driving, which is a different instrument, a different ladder and a different set of licence consequences.
The other boundary is motion. The Act is written around a vehicle in operation, and the single most common question about it — whether it applies at a red light or in stopped traffic — is one this site will not answer from the payload it holds, because the answer turns on how the Act’s own definition of operating is read rather than on a figure anyone can transcribe. What the payload does hold, and what this page prints, are the amounts and the consequences once a violation is made out.
The override
Some drivers, and some places, skip the ladder entirely
A proviso in the same section replaces the whole ladder with one flat figure — regardless of the driver's own offence count.
The override figure is ₱30,000, with a licence suspension alongside it. It applies to a driver in any of these positions:
- public utility vehicle driver
- school bus driver
- school service vehicle driver
- common carrier hauling volatile/flammable/toxic material
- any driver within a 50-metre radius of school premises
It is not a fifth rung. A driver in one of those positions, apprehended for the first time, pays the override rather than the ladder’s first figure. The ladder never runs for them at all.
Two of those positions are about who is driving and one is about where. The first sort follows the vehicle: a driver carrying passengers for hire, a driver carrying children to school, a driver carrying something that would be dangerous if the vehicle were mishandled. The reasoning is not hidden — the same lapse of attention has a larger consequence behind the wheel of a full bus than behind the wheel of an empty car, and the Act prices the consequence rather than the lapse.
The second sort follows the road, and it catches everybody. Inside the stated distance of school premises, the override applies to any driver, on a first offence, with no reference to what they are driving or who is in it. A reader who has checked the ladder and concluded that a first offence is affordable has not necessarily checked where they were when it happened.
Check a rung
Which offence is this?
Your offence count
None of these ladders states a reset window. No instrument in this corpus says an offence count lapses after a period, so a second offence is a second offence however long ago the first was.
What that rung states
Fine stated- Fine
- ₱5,000
- Also
- —
RA 10913 §8 — a machine-readable statute text
Not an offence
Hands-free use is exempt outright
It can rise
The figures can be adjusted, within a stated limit
Not only the driver