Star Tribune
Distracted driving death has left Wright County family ‘forever incomplete’
Greg and Amy LaVallee are marking an anniversary this year, but there is no celebration.
Instead, the Wright County couple are remembering the fateful day in August 2013 when a distracted driver struck and killed their 19-year-old son, Phillip, who was out running.
And they are asking drivers to put down their phones.
“Our family is heartbroken and forever incomplete,” Amy LaVallee said during a recent Minnesota Department of Public Safety news conference. The event kicked off a distracted driving enforcement campaign coinciding with April’s National Distracted Driving Awareness month.
Phillip had been one of the state’s top high school distance runners and had dreams of making it to the Olympics. “We continue to imagine what his life would be like now,” his mother continued. “He was deprived of his dreams and his life because of a driver’s selfish choice to drive distracted.”
For the rest of April, law enforcement across the state are stepping up enforcement of the state’s hands-free law, which went into effect in 2019. The law allows drivers to interact with phones and electronic devices through voice activation or with a single touch, but bans them from holding them in their hand while at the wheel.
Last year, deaths (22) and serious injuries (126) attributed to distracted driving dropped to their lowest levels since the law took effect. Still, distracted driving was a contributing factor in more than 32,000 crashes — one in every 11 crashes on Minnesota roads — between 2018 and 2022, the Department of Public Safety said.
“It’s a critical challenge we continue to face,” said Mike Hanson, director of the agency’s Office of Traffic Safety.
Hanson challenged all drivers to put their phones away for the entire month of April.
“Thirty days is all it takes” to change a behavior, Hanson said at the news conference. “You will find your driving task will be much easier. It will be less stressful, and you will be a much safer driver.”
In the years following their son’s death, the LaVallees have been active in raising awareness about the dangers of distracted driving. They were among many families who successfully pushed for the state’s hands-free law.
The couple started Just Drive Day in 2015, with the mission to end distracted driving and create a stigma around it. This year’s event will include a walk and run from 9 a.m. to noon April 29 at Monticello Middle School.
“There is only one task we do every day that has the potential to kill somebody, and that is driving,” Greg LaVallee said. Driving while distracted “is the most selfish choice.”
And something bad can happen fast. An investigation found that the driver who hit Phillip had received a phone call and momentarily looked away from the road.
“If that driver had focused on driving, had been paying attention that day, Phillip would still be with us,” Greg said.
The Minnesota State Patrol has identified the motorist whose SUV hit a school bus taking kids to their Iron Range school.
The patrol said 19-year-old Svea Lynn Snickers, of Alborn, Minn., ran a stop sign at the intersection and hit the bus as it headed north on Hwy. 5. She was last reported to be in critical condition.
The collision occurred just east of Hibbing about 7:50 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Hwy. 5 and Town Line Road, according to the State Patrol.
All 21 children heading to Cherry School suffered minor injuries when the bus flipped over about 7 miles southwest of its destination, the patrol said. The school serves about 600 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, and students of all ages were on the bus, said St. Louis County Schools Superintendent Reggie Engebritson.
A witness told Hibbing police that students were able to crawl out of the bus on their own.
Snickers suffered critical injuries, was extricated from the wreckage by emergency responders and taken by air ambulance to Essentia Hospital in nearby Virginia, according to police.
The bus driver, 52-year-old Shawn Allen Lindula, of Iron, Minn., was expected to survive his injuries.
Star Tribune staff writer Jana Hollingsworth contributed to this report.
St. Louis Park will soon require landlords to give renters more notice before they file for evictions over late payments.
The city currently requires landlords to give tenants notice seven days before they file for eviction. Starting in November, landlords will have to give 30 days notice and use a form prepared by the city.
“This is a tough ordinance,” Council Member Lynette Dumalag, the only person to vote against the change, said during a meeting this week. “At least for me, personally, I felt that it pit those that care about affordable housing against one another.”
In public hearings and other forums, city leaders heard from renters who said the current requirements didn’t give them enough time to scrape together payments if they face a sudden hardship, such as losing a job. They also heard from at least one landlord who said he might have to increase deposits because he already struggles to make ends meet when renters fall behind on payments.
The change passed 4 to 1. Council Member Tim Brausen and Mayor Nadia Mohamed were absent.
PARK RAPIDS, Minn. — Ryan Leckner has resigned as Mayor of Park Rapids and the city council has officially declared a vacancy.
City Administrator Angel Weasner said councilmembers will hold a workshop on Sept. 24 to determine how to proceed. They can fill the vacancy by appointment or hold a special election, which Leckner said seems unlikely given that the November general election is just around the corner.
Until then, Leckner said “we’re thinking that we’ll just be able to get by with just one less council member.”
He added that Councilmember Liz Stone would likely serve as acting mayor until voters hit the polls.
Former Park Rapids Mayor Pat Mikesh is running uncontested for Leckner’s now-vacant seat.
In 2018, Mikesh stepped down a month before the election and Leckner successfully ran as a write-in candidate.
Leckner first joined the council in 2015 and is ending his third, two-year term as mayor early because his family built a home outside city limits. Construction of the home in Henrietta Township, and the sale of his existing home in Park Rapids, all happened faster than expected, he said.
“My term was up in November anyways,” he said, “so I was kind of planning on just not running.”
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