Duluth Police Boost Distracted Driving Enforcement Through April

Getting cited for distracted driving in Minnesota runs $135 on the first offense, with surcharges included, and $360 on a repeat violation. The bigger bill often comes at renewal time: drivers with a citation on their record see insurance premiums rise an average of 28 percent, according to industry rate analyses, a cost that compounds across multiple policy terms.

Duluth Police are making that math more relevant this month. The department joined approximately 300 Minnesota law enforcement agencies in an April 1 through April 30 enforcement campaign coordinated by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety, with funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covering officer overtime. That money puts one to four additional patrol cars per participating agency on the road looking specifically for distracted drivers.

St. Louis County carries particular weight in this conversation. In 2023, the county ranked as Minnesota's second-deadliest for traffic crashes, logging 27 fatalities, with distracted driving identified alongside alcohol and drugs as a leading contributor. Statewide, 162 people died and more than 33,000 crashes were tied to distracted driving between 2019 and 2024.

Patrol Officer Chad Honetschlager described the enforcement paradox directly: "An increase of enforcement, we're writing more citations, obviously having more contacts with people, but unfortunately we're not seeing a decline in the use of cell phones." A previous April campaign produced 6,450 hands-free violations statewide, 1,000 more than the prior year's effort, even as overall fatalities have edged down.

Minnesota recorded 21 distraction-related traffic deaths in 2025, the lowest in seven years and a 30 percent drop from 2024's 30 deaths. Officials say the decline is progress, but fragile. The human cost of a single moment of inattention reached the office of Shakopee Mayor Matt Lehman, whose daughter-in-law died four months after a distracted driving crash, a loss that officials have cited repeatedly when making the case for compliance.

Mike Hanson, director of the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety, separated the campaign's intent from its enforcement mechanism, saying the goal is saving lives and that writing tickets becomes necessary only when drivers won't take safety seriously.

Minnesota's hands-free law prohibits physically holding a phone while driving. A mount or Bluetooth connection is legal; a phone in hand is not, regardless of whether the driver is moving or stopped at a light. With Duluth's extra patrols active through the end of the month, the simplest avoidance strategy is activating Do Not Disturb before the vehicle moves.