It's illegal in California to talk or text on a handheld cell phone while driving. But it's OK to pick up your phone and look at a map to see where you're going and how to get there.

That was the message Thursday from a state appeals court in Fresno, which threw out a driver's traffic ticket and $165 fine for using a map app in a traffic jam.

In a 2006 state law, the Legislature responded to concerns about distracted driving "by prohibiting drivers from engaging in conversations while holding the telephone in one's hand rather than prohibiting all hand-held uses of the telephone," said the Fifth District Court of Appeal.

The ruling is the first appellate interpretation of a 2006 state law that restricts handheld uses of a mobile telephone while driving. The ruling will have statewide impact if it withstands further appeals.

The driver, Steven Spriggs of Fresno, was stuck in freeway traffic on Highway 41 in January 2012 and pulled out his iPhone for a map to find another route. A Highway Patrol officer saw him holding the phone and pulled him over.

Spriggs challenged his ticket, but lower courts agreed with prosecutors that the law forbids all use of handheld phones. On Thursday, the appeals court said that's an unreasonable interpretation of the statute's language and history.

Because the law specifies that a phone should be used in a way that "allows hands-free listening and talking," its evident target was hands-on conversations and not other uses, said Justice Herbert Levy in the 3-0 ruling. Otherwise, he said, it might be illegal to hold the phone in your hand to check the time "or even to move it for use as a paperweight."

He quoted then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said in a press release after signing the bill in 2006 that "it's dangerous to talk on your cell phone while driving."

Levy also noted that the Legislature later passed a law that prohibits using a cell phone to send or receive a text message while driving, unless the phone is entirely voice-activated. That law would have been unnecessary, he said, if the 2006 statute already prohibited all handheld uses.

Another state law bars drivers under 18 from using any type of cell phone.

Spriggs' lawyer, Scott Reddie, praised the ruling. Asked whether it might promote distracted driving, he declined to comment, but said, "If the state wants to broaden the law, they can write new legislation."

The state could appeal to the California Supreme Court.