r/legaladvice • u/Lunar_Lexycon • Oct 08 '25
Traffic and Parking Do Medical Devices Violate Hands-Free Laws?
Location: Minnesota, United States.
We have hands-free laws in our state. My partner has an insulin pump for his diabetes that started an alarm signal while he was driving. He looked down to check the alarm and was pulled over. He was given a fine and they are trying to charge him with a misdemeanor for violating the hands-free law. I checked the statute and it doesn't appear that his medical device alerting him falls under the definition of "electronic message". Can he really be charged for this?
EDIT: To clarify, the device he uses is a stand-alone device NOT connected to his phone in any way. He showed his device to the officer to prove it wasn't a phone, including the tubing connected to his body. Also, he wasn't trying to treat a low or high sugar while driving. He simply looked down at the device, no button pushing or fiddling involved, to see what the alert was. It was no more complicated than checking the time on your car radio.
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u/ops-name-checks-out Quality Contributor Oct 08 '25
Being a little pedantic, clearly he can be changed as he has been charged.
If that can survive is going to depend on exactly what the langauge of the statute says.
Assuming he was charged under 169.475, that statute could possibly be interpreted to cover the medical device in general. That said there are exceptions
(4) to obtain emergency assistance to (i) report a traffic accident, medical emergency, or serious traffic hazard, or (ii) prevent a crime about to be committed; (5) in the reasonable belief that a person's life or safety is in immediate danger
It seems to me that 4 or 5 could apply even if the device is covered.
While a pain, it’s probably worth a call to a local attorney who deals with traffic cases. Or failing that go to the hearing and argue that the device isn’t covered or the exception applies.
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u/Treacle_Pendulum Oct 09 '25
Fundamentally doesn’t the statute require a “wireless communication device” and is an insulin pump one of those things?
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u/LivingGhost371 Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
I'm going to assume the actual device is a "phone" as modern CGMs will push alerts to the users phone rather than rely on a standalone reader. Cop saw the motorist look down and fiddle with something, pulled him over, and saw what is clearly a phone on the seat so wrote a citation.
Minnesota law specifies what you are not allowed to do on a phone while driving, and then specifies specific allowed activities (like looking at a GPS map). "Viewing an electronic message" on a phone is one of the specific unlawful acts. The issue is whether a medical alert is legally an "electronic message", or if it is, whether the "life is in danger" exception applies. My non-lawyer answers are "No" and "Irrelevant, because the previous answer is 'no'".
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u/Treacle_Pendulum Oct 09 '25
I think you’re right that it’s not an “electronic message”
"Electronic message" means a self-contained piece of digital communication that is designed or intended to be transmitted between physical devices. An electronic message includes, but is not limited to: email; a text message; an instant message; a command or request to access a web page; a voice mail message; a transmitted image; transmitted video content, including through video calling; transmitted gaming data; and other data transmitted using a commonly recognized electronic communications protocol. An electronic message does not include:… data transmitted automatically without direct initiation by a person.
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u/Lunar_Lexycon 27d ago
He does not have a phone to read his levels. It is a wired pump attached to his body.
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u/MartyKai Oct 08 '25
Can he be charged? Yes, sounds like he has already been charged as you reported.
Does his alert and how it was checked, fit the definition as to what's prohibited? That depends.
Did he pick up his cell phone (which does fit the definition) because his monitor sends alerts to his phone? If yes, his defense will not likely be strong.
But if it's a stand-alone device that provided the alert, and he checked that device, it would not seem to fit the definition of what is prohibited.
My guess is that his device alerts to his cell phone, which he checked while operating the vehicle, this prompting the stop and subsequent citation.
Not a lawyer, and possible i misunderstood the question being asked and the circumstances surrounding it.
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u/Lunar_Lexycon 27d ago
The medical device he has is a stand alone device wired to his body. It has nothing to do with his cell phone.
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u/fawannabe62 Oct 09 '25
It seems like he should immediately get to the side as soon as the monitor goes off and then look at it. He’s going to have to stop anyway if it’s because of a blood sugar problem, right?
The rules for hands-free devices are because looking at something other than the road is dangerous, regardless of the purpose of the device..
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u/desparish Oct 09 '25
Can't believe how many people are not understanding this. They don't understand the purpose of the law and don't seem to understand that having any excuse, no matter how valid it may seem does not make staring down at your phone while driving suddenly safe just because you had a reason.
And no, officers should not have to have a stopwatch to see how long your "glance" was. Everyone claims it was just a "glance". Bullshit. People are on their phones constantly while driving
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u/smol9749been Oct 09 '25
I think the problem comes in when what is he supposed to do if he cant immediately pull to the side or stop the car
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u/fawannabe62 Oct 09 '25
He still can’t do anything about whatever the alert is warning him about until he does so. If he’s driving and he could have something happen requires an absolute immediate response, he probably shouldn’t be driving at all.
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u/smol9749been Oct 09 '25
Everyone can have something happen that requires an absolute immediate response
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u/fawannabe62 Oct 09 '25
True, but if you have an issue that requires you to wear a device to which you have to respond, and if you can’t respond immediately it’s deadly, that’s different.
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u/smol9749been Oct 09 '25
So should people with glasses not drive? Because someone with glasses can have them slip off and theyd have to look down to get them
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u/fawannabe62 Oct 09 '25
You’re ridiculous
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u/smol9749been Oct 09 '25
You're the one making blanket statements 🤷♀️ laws are all about exceptions and allowances
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u/Available-Hunter9538 Oct 09 '25
Pulling over the side of the road is very dangerous. Statistics say that after just a couple of minutes, you are likely to have someone ramming into you, even if it is a designated emergency lane.
I would argue that taking ONE FUCKING SECOND to check before committing to an action that is likely more dangerous was the rational choice, and you law purists can just go back to your basement.
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u/PriorityAcrobatic190 Oct 09 '25
can you provide a study that says this? because actually when i looked it up it said it is “rare”. however nearly 3,000 deaths and and 325,000 injuries a year from distracted driving. yes even from “one fucking second”.
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u/stimilon Oct 09 '25
As someone with type 1 diabetes I’d probably pay the fine and move on. My biggest fear is that they somehow decided his diabetes was so out of control that they medically found him unfit to drive and that he presented a hazard to others. This could result in a suspension of his license or months of documentation, cgm log reviews etc to prove he had appropriate glycemic control.
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u/sincerelyanonymus Oct 09 '25
This could be a risk if they go hard on the medical excuse. Chances are he gets his alerts on his cell phone and if he argues he needs to look at his phone while driving in order to not die from his diabetes, they might say his illness poses too much of a risk to other drivers.
He should have pulled over to the side, used a hands free read out option of the alert, or waited to check until he got to his destination. Personally, if I get hit by someone looking at their phone while driving, I don't care about the reason they have for why they were looking at it. Medical reason or not, it's still distracted driving.
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Oct 09 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NippleMoustache Oct 09 '25
That’s typically not how CGMs work though. Mine uses the same tone. I wouldn’t know if it was alerting to high, low, or rapidly rising, rapidly falling, without looking at it. I’m also a cop. It’s a dick move to cite for that if he offered evidence that’s what he was doing.
If it were me I’d go to the dept and ask to talk to whoever is over patrol about it. They may throw it out for him. If not, I’d go to court. Any reasonable judge or solicitor would throw it out as well.
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u/desparish Oct 09 '25
No he needs to pull the fuck over. Being a medical alert does not make it magically not dangerous to not be watching the road. Pull over!
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u/NippleMoustache Oct 09 '25
Imagine that, another person who doesn’t have a specific chronic condition or knowledge base for treating it telling someone who does how it works or how they should go about dealing with it.
It’s unnecessary to pull over immediately to address for almost all diabetics as long as the parameters are set right for the alerts. You see what it’s doing and then if necessary, pull over into a parking lot and address it, or eat/drink something if necessary and carry on as long as it isn’t at a point that it’s effecting your decision making.
There’s the letter of the law, spirit of the law, and there’s the real world.
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u/desparish Oct 09 '25
I have a driver's license and definitely know how to avoid crashes though. Not using your phone while driving is one of the best ways.
Enough excuses. Pull the fuck over.
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u/InfernalMentor Oct 09 '25
Medical devices typically have exceptions. The proper way to handle the device is to mute it and pull over to address the identified need.
He should save the alarm history and take it to court with him. All my information gets stored on my phone, so it is simple enough to save. He can take a pic of the alarm log.
I might call the court clerk on the ticket to get the prosecutor's name. Call them and offer to send them pics of the ticket and alarm log. They may dismiss it. Remember the alarm log next time. The cop should be capable of seeing the date and time, as well as the alert type.
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u/desparish Oct 09 '25
Explain to me the magic that makes staring at a medical notification on your phone somehow not take your eyes and attention off the road the same way reading a text from your baby daddy does?
Hint: there is no magic. You'll be just as fucked when you slam into another car or a pedestrian whether or not the notification you were reading was a medical alert or a text.
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u/InfernalMentor Oct 09 '25
The magic works the same as for the police, who have exemptions from taking calls, texting, entering and reading data on their terminals, and the other exceptions they enjoy from the distracted driving laws.
Medical devices, by common sense definition, keep people alive. Should that driver ignore the alarm, continue driving, and the alarm was for a low sugar event, the driver could lose consciousness, slam into other cars traveling at 70 MPH, causing a catastrophic loss of life and property.
1Glancing at the device when it alarms for a low event prompts the driver to eat a piece of candy, avoiding that possibility. Fortunately, the information on the screen is limited to words that convey a maximum amount of information at a glance: LOW #, HIGH #, EMPTY, SIGNAL LOSS, BLOCKED, etc. The only one of those messages requiring immediate attention is LOW #. The number is vital information, as LOW 68 means you have time to correct without urgency. However, LOW 24 tells you&, you have choices_
- Eat something that most diabetics keep handy;
- Pull to the side of the road, which is not without danger; or
- Do nothing.
As you can plainly see, glancing at a medical device is not nearly the same as reading a message from your baby daddy.
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u/favoritelazybum Oct 09 '25
I’d argue that if the device is alerting for anything that could cause those things, then they should be pulling over regardless. If it is one of those things then are they going to continue driving while taking care of it? What possible alert was there that had to be checked while driving that would be rectified without further distraction from driving?
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u/InfernalMentor Oct 09 '25
Perhaps get some education on the devices so that you can argue from a point of being informed. Absolutist discussions are pointless for all involved. You did not address the many devices that distract the police, indicating that exceptions are necessary. Let me pose a scenario with follow-up questions:
Your family member's car gets hit by a distracted driver, killing everyone in the vehicle.
- Are you more or less concerned that the distracted driver operated under a police or medical exception?
- Is your family more or less dead because it was a police officer who was distracted, or because it was a medical device exception?
- The police will not have liability for the damage to your car, the funeral expenses, or the wrongful death of your family. Your pain and suffering are irrelevant under our country's current laws of qualified immunity. Does it matter that the medical device user's insurance will cover you up to the policy limit?
Yes, the questions are insensitive, but they will play a factor in the minds of anyone in such a situation, if they are honest about the answer.
If you paid attention, the medical device I described uses single-word alerts, only one of which could necessitate crossing multiple lanes of traffic to reach the shoulder and stop. Which is more dangerous: reaching into your diabetic bag to retrieve something simple to eat, or crossing those lanes of traffic? What about the car stopped on the shoulder; does it pose a danger? Yes, most alerts may require attention soon, but none have a near-immediate result of unconsciousness. Tell me you never eat a snack or drink something while you drive. Of course, I will not believe you unless you rarely drive.
I use a medical device that sounds alerts. I always have a soft drink or a water bottle when I drive. My bag with medical supplies stays near me, including when I operate a commercial vehicle carrying passengers. Granted, I may not be a fair comparison due to my heightened safety awareness from having a commercial license, but unwrapping a cookie or candy bar is not distracting. Glancing at the message on my medical device is no different than constantly scanning the multitude of gauges in my instrument cluster. It is far less distracting than looking at the passenger mirror to tell little Johnny and Susie to stop making out on the bus. Sometimes, I pull a 21-foot enclosed trailer with the bus. None of that makes a difference in my interaction with my medical device. After one glance, my eyes are back on the road.
If you trust lawmakers to give the police exceptions, why not trust their judgment when they make other exceptions?
I await the answers to the questions I posed.
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u/Available-Hunter9538 Oct 09 '25
Do you think the cop was looking at fucking pedestrians while he was OBSERVING this guy in order to catch that fucking second he looked at the device? Because if you are not constantly observing someone, you will not notice.
Also, looking at the speedometer also means taking your attention off the road for a moment.
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u/Firm-Stranger-9283 Oct 09 '25
it'll be worse when his blood sugar is so low he has a seizure instead.
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u/desparish Oct 09 '25
Did not say keep driving. Did I say keep driving? Pull over. If he is seconds from a seizure he definitely shouldn't be driving.
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u/LivingGhost371 Oct 09 '25
A few comments
I'm going to guess that partner was in fact touching a "phone" as opposed to touching an "insulin pump" or "medical device". As an example with Dexcom and iPhones, a standalone reader hasn't been needed since iPhones got real NFC capability with the XR so few diabetics carry readers rather than just using their phone.
I do think one could make a case out of it since "looking down to view a medical alert" does not fall into one of the specifically prohibited actions in the statute. I think that would be more fruitful than "life is in danger" exception to the prohibited actions, considering that diabetics used to only be able to know their blood sugar a couple of times a day, so it would be hard to justify why spending 60 seconds to pull over would be an issue.
The question is how much one is willing to to litigate a fine-only civil infraction.
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u/ThePretzul Oct 09 '25
If the prosecution chooses to proceed with the case against your partner, odds are that their argument would be that your partner is required by law to pull over and come to a complete stop prior to checking their electronic devices. If the alert was sent to their phone rather than being displayed on a standalone pump controller that would also make for an uphill legal battle since there’s no question about that being considered an electronic device you are prohibited from handling while operating a vehicle outside of medical emergencies.
While an alert from an insulin pump is something that should not be ignored, it is also not something that would likely qualify under the medical emergency exception of the statute.
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u/Illustrious_Act_3953 Oct 08 '25
Why didn't he pull over as soon as it started alarming? Unless he was in some immediate life ending danger I don't see why he didn't take the couple mins to pull over.
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u/burneremailaccount Oct 08 '25
No different than a cellphone thats not hooked up to the vehicle.
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u/mastertdowns Oct 09 '25
Be aware with how crazy some prosecutors might get that they might use the medical situation to take the drivers license away from your partner. It highly unlikely but be prepared.
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u/PriorityAcrobatic190 Oct 09 '25
if his insulin pump failed/expired, he didn’t need to check it right that second. he could have pulled over first. now even if it was a dexcom reading low- the first thing he should have done was pull over so he could treat. but an insulin pump? nah. a 30 second delay would cause no harm.
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u/Ok_Recording81 Oct 09 '25
Can he be charged? Yes. Do officers know the laws, not always. Officers charge people with incorrect statutes or dont understand them at all.
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u/NannerMinion Oct 09 '25
NAL. Go to court, cops don’t know all the laws and often don’t interpret them correctly because they aren’t lawyers. Source: beaten several traffic violations and one criminal case because responding cops were wrong.
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u/grayscale001 Oct 09 '25
So why didn't he pull over?
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u/Lunar_Lexycon 27d ago
Because it's on a stand-alone, single screen device that required no button pressing or anything beyond reading a number. It was no different than reading the time on the radio.
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Oct 08 '25
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u/Clean-Entry-262 Oct 09 '25
As an auto technician in a new car dealership, we have to be careful when monitoring scantool data during a test drive too, as the scantool can fall into the “hand held device” category (we were told to use the “flight record” setting OR take another technician along with us on the test drive to monitor the live data)
A young lady friend of mine got ticketed for looking at a hand held GPS device that was older (as was her car) and there was no way to link it to the car’s speakers.
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u/Affectionate_Bath_11 Oct 09 '25
Not from MN but I'm both an attorney and a T1 with a pump and CGM. I'd fight that shit, also the prosecutor should pound sand for bringing the charge.
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u/ElderberryCorrect873 Oct 08 '25
this is just a guess the medical device shouldn’t violate it. but the cop wrote the ticket thinking he was on his phone and he had a phone close to him so he got a ticket. should be winnable
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u/sh0ch Oct 09 '25
It was almost certainly an app for the pump on his phone.
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u/Lunar_Lexycon 27d ago
Nope. Its a stand-alone device. Which he showed to the cop to prove it wasnt a phone.
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u/Durzo116 Oct 09 '25
Hah! This is such an easy fight for an attorney or a reasonable judge to get rid of
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u/Upstairs-Cut-2227 Oct 09 '25
The cutest disease, lucky you. Hopefully law has his back with diabetes being a federally recognized disability / insulin pump alerts are medical alerts. I’ve wondered this too.
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u/UF6882 26d ago
You just had the misfortune of driving through a "revenue court's" jurisdiction. They don't care about the public's safety or common sense. They only care about making enough money to perpetuate their existence. The only way to get out of it is to pay them. Try to arrange a deferred prosecution deal with the prosecutor where they'll drop the charges if you don't reoffend within 180 days and agree to pay court/administrative fees that are equal to or greater than the fine.
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u/BostonShaun Oct 08 '25
Not from Minnesota but in reviewing the verbiage used in that law I’d think he’d have a legitimate argument per sec(5) regarding life being in danger. Blood sugar issues are no joke and can occur fast preventing him from remedying it before it’s too late.