Attorney General Lori Swanson calls for tougher distracted driving laws

The attorney general has tougher laws in mind to combat the "epidemic."

October 27, 2018 at 3:08AM
A man uses his cellphone while driving in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday, a common sight.
A man uses his cellphone while driving in downtown Minneapolis. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Attorney General Lori Swanson on Friday proposed several measures to toughen distracted driving laws in Minnesota.

Among those changes: requiring hands-free cellphone use while driving, increasing penalties for texting while driving, and suspending driver's licenses of repeat offenders.

"We need to change the culture around distracted driving and make it not be OK for people to do this," Swanson said in a news release. "We should apply some of the successful drunken driving reform measures to distracted driving, which has become an epidemic on the roads."

Despite bipartisan support, efforts to toughen Minnesota's distracted driving laws stalled in the Legislature this year. Sixteen other states have banned handheld cellphone use while driving.

Swanson said her office has handled more than 15,000 driver's license revocation cases after impaired driving arrests over the past three years.

In a report released Friday, Swanson's office noted there are more than 50 deaths each year in Minnesota related to proven cases of distracted driving, although she said the actual number of deaths and injuries is likely higher.

From 2013 to 2017, 265 people were killed in Minnesota and 1,080 suffered serious injuries in distracted-driving crashes, the report says. One in five crashes resulting in death or serious injury during that period was caused by distracted driving.

In 2017, drivers between the ages of 16 and 29 represented 22 percent of all drivers but 47 percent of texting-while-driving charges; drivers ages 30 to 49 represented 33 percent of drivers and 42 percent of texting-while-driving charges, the report said.

Janet Moore • 612-673-7752 Twitter: @Moorestrib

FILE - In this March 12, 2018, file photo, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson speaks during an interview at the Capitol in St. Paul.
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson , pictured earlier this year, on Friday urged the Legislature to act on measures to reduce distracted driving.(AP Photo/Jim Mone) (AP/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
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about the writer

Janet Moore

Reporter

Transportation reporter Janet Moore covers trains, planes, automobiles, buses, bikes and pedestrians. Moore has been with the Star Tribune for 21 years, previously covering business news, including the retail, medical device and commercial real estate industries. 

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