Minnesotans are calling attention to traffic deaths fueled by speeding by raising awareness on the Capitol steps.

According to the National Transportation Research Group, from 2019 to 2022, the amount of traffic deaths jumped 26 percent in the state.

“On April 25, 2012, at 8:40 in the evening, I got the phone call that no parent wants to get,” John Dudley, Minnesotan, said.

John Dudley never got to see his son Andrew live past 18 years old.

“Andrew left church on his 10-speed bike, entered traffic and a lady was talking on her cell phone and hit him head-on,” Dudley said.

The tragic crash gave Dudley new purpose to fight for safer streets and demand an end to traffic violence.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t have an episode thinking of Andrew,” he said.

Minnesotans who carry that same pain showed up to the State Capitol to honor victims who died in traffic crashes.

Advocates are focusing on the importance of reducing speeds.

Last session, lawmakers passed legislation calling for a task force to study how well speed cameras work to possibly legalize them in the state.

An attendee, Allison Risser, said those cameras could have saved her cousin Henry, who died in a crash on a Wisconsin road in 2019.

“If this man was out there and he was driving at the speed limit, if he had attached his trailer properly, if he hadn’t been on his phone, things would have been different,” Risser said.

After getting the hands-free law passed in 2019, advocates said that’s just the beginning and lawmakers need to do more to improve road safety.