In slightly more than one week, elected officials of all stripes and types will be crisscrossing the state talking about who won and who lost the 2017 legislative session. There will be lists of accomplishments and finger pointing over defeats. There will be abstract claims about avoided calamities and concrete numbers related to budgets and, hopefully, state bonding projects. But unless something changes dramatically in the last two weeks, we will have missed a chance to make our roads a little safer.

Right now, hands-free language requiring all of us who drive to put down our cellphones is missing from both the public safety and transportation bills. This is not a ban; it simply requires us to get the phone out of our hands when we drive. We would still be free to use our phones through voice activation or other hands-free modes.

A public safety matter is not like a tax break or a procurement policy change if it has to wait a year for action. In the time between the end of session this year and the end of session next year, there will be 365 days. In Minnesota, there is roughly one traffic fatality and 100 car crashes with injuries every single day. One out of five fatalities is related to distracted driving. One out of four crashes is related to distracted driving. In a year, that's more than 70 deaths and 9,000 injuries.

Hands-free takes a step forward to, hopefully, prevent some of these fatalities and injuries. How can we wait a year? Hands-free has support. Everyone saw it at the legislative hearings. Victims' families, State Patrol, police chiefs, construction contractors, legal advocates, insurers, realtors, truckers, traffic safety experts and legislators from both parties and across the state all were there in support.

Let's get hands-free back in the mix and get a win. We all lose if we wait a year.

Paul Aasen is president of the Minnesota Safety Council.