BREAKING NEWS: Area senator applauds hands-free bill signed into law

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed the hands-free cell phone bill into law Friday morning. The law, which takes effect Aug. 1, will ban motorists from using their cell phones while driving.
One of the chief authors of the bill was Senator Dave Senjem, who serves Dodge and Olmsted counties. He said the September 2018 crash that killed a school teacher and her daughter on U.S. Highway 14 by Claremont was “my epiphany moment,” to get the laws changed in Minnesota. Rachel Harberts and her daughter, Emerson, were killed allegedly by a motorist who was on his cell phone operating a banking app at the time of the crash.
“It did not have to happen,” Senjem says. And now he’s glad he has been able to do something to bring some good out of the tragedy.