Star Tribune
St. Cloud tow truck driver hit a second time has message for motorists: Please move over
Tow truck driver Phil Henkemeyer is once again pleading for motorists to slow down and move over when encountering emergency vehicles stopped on the side of the road with lights flashing.
Henkemeyer was pulling a motorist out of the ditch about 9:10 p.m. March 16 when a driver going more than 60 mph lost control on icy Hwy. 23 near Rockville in central Minnesota and slammed into the driver’s side of his truck. It was the second straight winter his truck was hit.
“It was that godawful sound, again,” Henkemeyer said.
The crunching and twisting metal brought back memories of Dec. 29, 2021, when a different driver rear-ended Henkemeyer’s truck as he pulled a vehicle out of a snowbank on Interstate 94 near Avon, Minn.
Both crashes could have been avoided if drivers obeyed the Ted Foss Move Over Law. The law states that motorists on roads with two or more lanes in the same direction must move one full lane away from stopped emergency vehicles with flashing lights activated. Those include police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, tow trucks and maintenance and construction vehicles.
If it is not possible to move over, drivers must slow down significantly when passing by.
The Move Over Law was enacted in honor of state trooper Ted Foss, who was killed while conducting a traffic stop on the shoulder of Interstate 90 in Winona in 2000.
“Drive to conditions of the road,” said Henkemeyer, who has worked for Collins Brothers Towing in St. Cloud for the past 10 years. “I get people want to get places, but for their safety — our safety — if you see lights, don’t put yourself in that position. Your life and safety is at risk.”
The driver who hit Henkemeyer’s truck in March suffered noncritical injuries.
Henkemeyer escaped injury both times his truck was hit. But had the crashes happened 10 seconds earlier when he was standing by his truck, Henkemeyer said he, like his truck, may have down for the count, or worse.
“I must have a really good guardian angel,” he said. “Sometimes it’s too close for comfort.”
Though the Move Over Law has been on the books for two decades, troopers still see drivers routinely violating it, said Lt. Gordon Shank with the State Patrol.
Data from the Department of Public Safety (DPS) shows 550 vehicles responding to roadside incidents have been hit from 2018 through 2022.
As of Wednesday, state troopers had cited 423 drivers this year for failing to move over. That comes after troopers wrote more than 6,300 tickets for the offense from 2020 through 2022, according to DPS.
Why don’t drivers move over? Sometimes they are impaired, distracted or simply don’t see the flashing lights, Shank said.
“Once we talk to those drivers, many apologize,” he said. “It only takes one time for a driver to not move over” to lead to a bad outcome. “Give troopers [and others like Henkemeyer] space to do their job.”
The Lynx are in the hot seat.
The team lost Game 3 of the WNBA Finals series against the New York Liberty on Wednesday night 77-80, setting the stage for a decisive match at Target Center on Friday night. Fans in the arena reacted with resounding disappointment after Sabrina Ionescu sunk a three-pointer to break away from the tie game and dashed the Lynx’s chance at forcing overtime.
Before we get to the reactions, first things first: The Lynx set an attendance record, filling Target Center with 19,521 spectators for the first time in franchise history. That’s nearly 500 more than when Caitlin Clark was in town with the Indiana Fever earlier this year.
Despite leading by double digits for much of the game, the Lynx began the fourth quarter with a one-point lead over the Liberty and struggled to stay more than two or three points ahead throughout.
The Liberty took the lead with minutes to go in the fourth quarter and folks were practically despondent.
Of course, there were people who were in it solely for the spectacle. Nothing more.
The Lynx took a commanding lead early in the first quarter and ended the first half in winning position, setting a particularly jovial mood among the fanbase to start the game.
Inside Target Center, arena announcers spent a few minutes before the game harassing Lynx fans — and Liberty fans — who had not yet donned the complementary T-shirts draped over every seat.
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
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