Amid the bevy of new state laws that take effect this month, there are a couple of safety-minded changes of special note.

Speeding in work zones

Especially timely now — as the road construction and summer travel seasons run their annual parallel peaks — is a mandatory $300 fine for motorists who speed through work zones or ignore work-zone flaggers.

The statewide $300 fine replaces fines that varied by county and might have been as low as $50, the Star Tribune reported last week.

“Many work zones are in place across the state, and many workers are in those work zones improving our state’s transportation system,” Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Charlie Zelle wrote in announcing the new law. “This law is important because it provides added protection in areas that can be vulnerable to careless drivers.”

The agency reports distracted driving and speeding are the two biggest factors in crashes in work zones.

Efforts to make work zones safer have increased in recent years, and proponents of the law believe it will be more effective than the state’s longstanding “fines double in work zones” message.

Unfortunately, legislators did not adopt a proposal that would ban the use of cellphones by motorists in work zones. Still, it’s worth heeding MnDOT’s slogan this year: “Orange Cones. No phones.”

Tanning beds not for minors

Perhaps because it’s summer, little attention has gone to another important change legislators made this session. As of Aug. 1, Minnesotans younger than 18 cannot use UV tanning beds.

The law took effect just two days after a federal study reported about 400,000 cases of skin cancer may be related to indoor tanning in the U.S. each year. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Department of Health highlighted the dangers of indoor tanning with these findings:

— Thirty-four percent of 11th-grade white females reported they had tanned indoors in the last year.

— Melanoma is the second most common cancer among females ages 15 to 29 years old, according to Minnesota cancer registry data.

— The number of non-Hispanic white women ages 20 to 49 years old diagnosed with melanoma has increased 5 percent each year for the past 15 years.

— The St. Cloud Times

Distributed by MCT Information Services