ST. PAUL, Minn. - It's difficult for law enforcement to detect distracted drivers, but thanks to an effort that utilizes a school bus, a pair of Ramsey County Sheriff's deputies lead a crackdown operation that started on Friday.

Distracted driving is a growing problem in Minnesota. Anyone who texts, emails or surfs the internet on a phone while driving is breaking the law.

"The spotters in the bus had a birds-eye view in the cars and they can see exactly what the driver's are doing," explained Sgt. Kevin Otto.

There's a certain vantage point a school bus provides on the road and as the cars passed by, if the drivers or passengers did something illegally, a radio call went out to squads travelling with the bus to pull the offenders over.

It took about an hour or so to get the first distracted driver as they drove up and down a few-mile stretch of Interstate 35W.

Most of the violations were seat belt related.

"We were surprised to see the number of seat belt violations, mature adults too," said Ott. "(People in their) 30s, 50s, 60s and one 85-year-old woman."

Still, the goal is to crackdown on distracted driving which can really be anything from texting, eating, a dog on your lap, applying makeup, anything that an officer determines distracts a person from the task at hand.

Some might think that the school bus is an unfair law enforcement advantage, but deputies said it's perfectly legal.

"It's all above board. There's no entrapment or anything and we're not impeding anybody or stopping anybody we shouldn't. We're telling people there are officers on the bus who observed this driving conduct," said Ott.

The distracted driving crackdown will continue through April 20.