Minnesota's new law prohibiting drivers from holding cellphones while behind the wheel was just hours old when Sgt. Mike Glassberg of the Hopkins Police Department spotted his first offender.
A man in a Mercedes-Benz GL 450 was holding a phone to his ear as he drove east on Hwy. 7 near Hopkins Crossroad just after 7 a.m. Glassberg stopped him and wrote the driver a ticket.
"We have zero tolerance on this right now," said Glassberg as he worked an overtime shift Thursday morning to enforce the hands-free law that took effect just after midnight. "The goal is to change behavior."
The driver Glassberg stopped was not the first to be cited. The State Patrol issued its first ticket just after 2 a.m. in the west metro, said patrol spokesman Col. Matt Langer.
Minnesota on Thursday became the 19th state with a hands-free law. For months, authorities have spread the word about the law through news reports, social media and literature passed out at civic events. Gov. Tim Walz and his daughter, Hope, even made a video about it.
But not everybody got the message, or complied with it.
In Eagan, police ticketed a woman who was texting her friend about the new law and then put the phone up to her ear to make a call, said Officer Aaron Machtemes. In New Hope, a group of officers from a handful of northwest metro suburbs gave warnings to some drivers and tickets to others. The first driver Glassberg cited in Hopkins admitted that he knew about the law but still picked up the phone.
Glassberg stopped four other drivers, including one woman who said she was unaware of the law. Another woman said she could not resist making a call to her daughter, even though she knew holding the phone was illegal. A driver in New Hope didn't know the law banned programming his GPS while at the wheel.