Colorado Traffic Law · Effective September 1, 2026
For years, killing someone while looking at a phone carried a penalty so light that prosecutors never once secured a conviction under it. SB26-072 repealed that misdemeanor and replaced it with a class 5 felony. The criminal case gets the headlines. The civil claim is where families feel the difference.
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Between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, zero drivers in Colorado were convicted under the statute that punished causing a death while using a phone behind the wheel. Not one. The reason was not that fatal distracted-driving crashes were rare. It was that the charge on the books, a class 1 misdemeanor traffic offense tucked into C.R.S. 42-4-239(4)(d), carried a penalty so light that district attorneys worked around it or declined to file it at all.
On May 28, 2026, Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 26-072, which repealed that misdemeanor and wrote driving directly into Colorado’s criminally negligent homicide statute. Effective September 1, 2026, a driver whose criminal negligence behind the wheel, phone in hand or otherwise, kills another person commits a class 5 felony.
Most coverage treated the change as one bullet in a list of new traffic laws. But the statute does three things that matter to a victim’s family in ways a sentence length never captures: it opens the door to involuntary blood testing after fatal crashes, it makes restitution a mandatory part of every conviction, and it hands civil attorneys evidence that used to take months of discovery to obtain.
What changed, charge by charge
The repeal closed what defense-side lawyers quietly called the texting loophole. Under the old structure, a driver whose phone use caused a fatal crash could be charged under the mobile-device statute and face a traffic misdemeanor, or prosecutors could try to fit the facts into criminally negligent homicide and argue to a jury that looking at a phone amounted to criminal negligence. The second path was harder than it should have been, and the fiscal note for SB26-072 shows how often the first path was used: never.
| Consequence of a phone-caused fatal crash | Before September 1, 2026 | On or after September 1, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Primary charge | Class 1 misdemeanor traffic offense, C.R.S. 42-4-239(4)(d) | Criminally negligent homicide, C.R.S. 18-3-105(1)(b), a class 5 felony |
| Prison exposure | Misdemeanor sentencing, with probation and suspended sentences routine | Presumptive range of 1 to 3 years in the Department of Corrections plus 2 years of mandatory parole |
| Driver’s license | No automatic revocation for the offense | Mandatory revocation, and the conviction counts toward habitual traffic offender status |
| Blood testing | Involuntary testing not authorized for this offense | Police with probable cause can require an involuntary blood test, and results are admissible |
| Convictions in FY 2023–FY 2025 | 0 | n/a (law effective Sept. 1, 2026) |
The vote was lopsided in both chambers: 31-0 in the Senate and 61-4 in the House, with Republican senators John Carson and Marc Snyder sponsoring alongside Democratic representatives Cecelia Espenoza and Bob Marshall. AAA Colorado’s Skyler McKinley called the 2026 session “the most consequential legislative session for traffic safety in decades,” and SB26-072 was the final piece of that package to take effect, after six other laws went into force on August 12.
What the legislature rejected: the mandatory-prison version
Here is a correction that matters if you have read the early coverage. The bill as introduced did more than upgrade the charge. It would have added vehicular homicide and vehicular assault to Colorado’s list of crimes of violence under C.R.S. 18-1.3-406, which strips judges of probation entirely and forces a sentence of at least the midpoint of the range. That is where the “mandatory prison” framing in some summaries comes from.
That provision did not survive. The Senate Judiciary Committee amended it out, and both the official summary of the act as enacted and the final fiscal note describe only the felony upgrade and its conforming changes: license revocation, habitual offender status, and blood test procedures. Under the law that took effect September 1, a judge sentencing for criminally negligent homicide still has discretion, including the possibility of probation, within the 1-to-3-year presumptive range.
From the fiscal note for SB26-072, Legislative Council Staff, July 23, 2026:
“Use of a Mobile Electronic Device while Driving — Causing Death. This bill reclassifies the existing offense of use of a mobile electronic device while driving that causes the death of another… From FY 2022-23 to FY 2024-25, no individuals have been sentenced and convicted for this existing offense.”
“For criminally negligent homicide, it is assumed that the circumstances included by the bill can already be prosecuted as criminally negligent homicide under current law.”
The fiscal note also reports that 64 people were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the same three-year window, most of them in circumstances unrelated to driving. The legislature’s bet is that the clearer statutory language, not a new punishment category, is what will make prosecutors file and juries convict.
What a felony charge actually hands a victim’s family
A criminal case does not pay medical bills or replace lost income. But every stage of a felony prosecution generates material that a civil claim can use, and SB26-072 strengthened several of those stages at once. The civil side remains a separate Colorado car accident claim, even while prosecutors pursue the criminal charge.
Four changes carry most of the weight.
Impairment evidence gets captured before it disappears. The amended statute authorizes police to require an involuntary blood test when they have probable cause to believe a driver committed criminally negligent homicide while driving, and the bill’s conforming amendments make the results admissible. In civil terms, an objective toxicology result obtained within hours of a crash is worth more than any amount of later deposition testimony about what the driver may have consumed.
Restitution becomes part of every conviction. Under C.R.S. 18-1.3-603, every felony conviction in Colorado must include consideration of restitution, and the list of recoverable losses includes ongoing medical expenses, funeral and disposition costs, property damage, and insurance deductibles. A restitution order is enforceable like a civil judgment and survives the prison term. It rarely makes a family whole, but it is money that does not depend on negotiating with an adjuster.
The plea does the liability work. When a driver pleads guilty to or is convicted of criminally negligent homicide, the civil case no longer turns on proving fault from skid marks and witness memory. The conviction and plea become powerful evidence in the injury or wrongful death action, and the insurer’s usual denial scripts, disputed speeds, claimed inattention by the victim, stop landing.
The driver loses the license and the record follows them. Mandatory revocation and habitual-offender exposure mean the at-fault driver’s own file corroborates the severity of the conduct. That context shapes how insurers reserve for the claim and how juries hear it.
What the law does not change
Families who assume the felony case handles the financial case will be disappointed. The boundaries are worth stating plainly. Those deadlines also matter when a distracted driver strikes a rider, and a Colorado motorcycle accident attorney can help preserve the civil claim while the crash is investigated.
Involuntary blood test authorized
Automatic license revocation
Restitution considered at every conviction
Felony plea available as civil evidence
Restitution rarely covers full damages
Punitive damages still require fraud, malice, or willful and wanton conduct
Wrongful death claims generally face a two-year deadline
Judges keep sentencing discretion; probation remains possible
The at-fault driver’s liability insurance remains the primary source of compensation, and a criminal prosecution does not pause the statute of limitations on a wrongful death claim, which in Colorado generally runs two years from the death. Punitive damages are another common misreading: Colorado permits them only for fraud, malice, or willful and wanton conduct, and ordinary texting negligence, even when it rises to criminal negligence, does not automatically clear that bar.
Yes: Register as the victim with the district attorney’s office so restitution is compiled from your documented losses, and coordinate the civil claim with the criminal schedule so evidence like phone forensics is preserved before it is sealed or destroyed.
The civil claim carries the case. Move quickly to preserve the driver’s phone records and the crash report through formal legal channels, because carriers and drivers can discard that material within weeks.
Under HB26-1127, police must file an amended crash report within five days when a death occurs within 30 days. Confirm the amended report exists; it changes both the official record and the claim.
Wrongful death claims in Colorado generally must be filed within two years of the death. The criminal case does not extend that deadline.
Why this law exists
SB26-072 arrived at the end of a session shaped by families who lost people to reckless drivers. The same package that took effect August 12 included Magnus’s Law, named for 17-year-old cyclist Magnus White, which requires officers to offer breath tests after fatal and serious-injury crashes, and the Liam Stewart School Zone Act, named for a 13-year-old killed while biking to school in Littleton. Standing at the Capitol for the August announcement, Michael White, Magnus’s father, said: “Safer roads are not a partisan issue.” The felony upgrade that followed nine days later passed with votes to prove it.
Whether the threat of a felony record changes behavior on I-25 is a question the next three years of crash data will answer. For families already living the worst case, the answer is more immediate: since September 1, the state treats a texting death as the felony it always should have been, and every piece of a felony case, the blood test, the plea, the restitution order, the revocation, is a piece a civil claim can use.
This article explains the law as enacted and is general information, not legal advice. If you have lost someone or been injured in a crash caused by a distracted driver, The Advocates Accident Attorneys of Colorado offer free, confidential consultations and handle cases on a contingency basis, you pay nothing unless we win. Talk to our Denver team.
Sources: SB26-072, Colorado General Assembly; Final fiscal note, SB26-072 (July 23, 2026); C.R.S. 18-3-105 (criminally negligent homicide); C.R.S. 18-3-106 (vehicular homicide); C.R.S. 18-1.3-603 (restitution); Denver7, Aug. 12, 2026; Steamboat Pilot & Today.