A new grant for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety is hoping to address trends associated with distracted driving.

Their Office of Traffic Safety says distracted driving contributes to an average of nearly 30 deaths and 150 life-changing injuries a year across the state.

For one father, Tom Goeltz, the issue is personal to him and he wants all drivers to take it seriously to make the roads safer.

“Regions Hospital in St. Paul called me and said your daughter has been in a crash, you need to come down here immediately,” said Goeltz, whose daughter died because of a distracted driver in 2016.

In 2016, Goeltz says his 22-year-old daughter Megan and her unborn child died after they were hit by a distracted driver on Highway 95 in Stillwater.

“Waves come and go and sometimes we feel very emotional about certain things,” Goeltz said.

Today, this is something that remains an issue.

“It’s a selfish decision to interact with that phone,” said Mike Hanson, DPS Office of Traffic Safety director.

Hanson’s office is now using a $100,000 grant from Michelin Mobility Intelligence and the Governors Highway Safety Association to help them figure out how they can reduce the amount of distracted driving.

“We’re already looking at some of this data and it is pretty alarming,” Hanson said.

The data comes from a variety of sources, including cell phone apps, to learn what a driver is doing while behind the wheel.

“We are going to be able to use data in ways that we have never been able to do before to solve traffic safety problems,” Hanson said.

Hanson believes this will help them with further education and enforcement and adds the information collected is anonymous.

“There is no way to track it back to an individual user,” Hanson said.

“I try to change behavior through training and advocacy,” Goeltz said.

In the years since Megan’s death, Goeltz says he’s been hit by three distracted drivers himself. He’s fully on board with this project to honor his daughter and end distracted driving.

“It’s hard to quit an addiction like that, and that’s what it is ultimately,” Goeltz said. “We need to do something now and if this study will help, more power to them.”

For now, this project is solely focused on Hennepin County. Once the OTS analyzes the data at the end of this month, they’ll decide whether they want to expand it to other counties.