Texas Gov. Rick Perry has vetoed a new bill the Texas Legislature passed to add Texas to the ranks of 32 other states making it illegal to read or send text messages while driving. Perry says government shouldn’t “micromanage” adults’ behavior, and instead education should be emphasized to steer people from the dangerous habit.

It’s been said by scientists that distracted driving is as bad as drunk driving, and statistics would seem to bear this out. As driving distractions continue to mushroom, so do traffic deaths and injuries due to distracted drivers, who could kill up to 6,000 persons on America’s roads and highways this year. The rate of distracted driving deaths, in fact, has doubled in recent years.

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USA Today has analyzed government records about tour buses, and what it’s found is alarming.

The newspaper reports that records show 433 out of 3,100 motor coach operators are named as being on “alert” by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, whose job is to oversee safety for trucks and buses.

These alerts indicate a bus threatens passengers via a “higher safety risk.” But despite being named among these alerts, 208 of the 433 bus companies haven’t had a full safety audit in over nine months. And two of them have been involved in a fatal bus crash.

So what good were the spot inspections which revealed serious or repeated violations of safety measures? And what good do rules do when a new bus company is allowed to operate for a year and a half without a complete audit?

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What is going on at Toyota?

In 2008, the Japanese auto maker became the world’s largest auto manufacturer, knocking General Motors out of the top slot after 77 years. Toyota’s sales last year amounted to 8.418 million vehicles worldwide. Clearly,car buyers trusted the brand. Now Toyota appears to be headed for a record as the auto manufacturer with the most recalls in history.

This week, it recalled nearly 1.7 million cars worldwide. Add up its recalls since 2009 and they total nearly 16 million cars. What happened? (more…)

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USA Today has some traffic accident news for us: Rural roads are more dangerous than urban roads.

Are Jim S. Adler & Associates’ car crash lawyers on top of this? More than USA Today, it seems.

Jimadler.com ran a car wreck blog post on the same conclusion more than 15 months ago. That’s when we alerted you that rural driving is riskier than more crowded urban driving. And why? (more…)

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A battle is brewing between auto makers and big insurance companies with some hard-hitting consequences for drivers. At stake are more wrecks and increased costs for auto insurance even for safe drivers.

It boils down to this: Automakers want to build touch screen TV monitors with Internet access into new cars to recoup their losses during the economic downturn. Big insurance companies know that will boost the number of distracted driving accidents, increasing insurance company costs that will have to be passed on to all drivers.

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The mighty Harley-Davidson has opted to settle rather than face another trial in the case of a paralyzed Chicago firefighter who says a defect caused his Harley motorcycle “to wobble and crash on an Arizona  Interstate Highway in March 2004,” according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. The motorcycle accident trial lasted a week. It ended in a hung jury. The settlement is confidential.

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In California, it’s against the law to hold a cell phone while driving. Hands-free devices are allowed, but sacrificing a hand from the wheel — and a large chunk of one’s attention from the road  — is forbidden.

Yet Maria Schwarzenegger was photographed yakking by phone as she drove in California last fall, despite a law her husband helped pass. And on Monday, Disney Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus was stopped by police in North Hollywood as she chatted by phone while driving to a salon for a massage.

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Texas lawmakers know they must act, but how is the big question. Our state leads the nation in alcohol-related traffic deaths, and Dallas County is the nation’s third-worst for per capita drunk driving fatalities. Such tragic distinctions cannot continue.

One huge problem is that many drunk driving fatalities are caused by multiple offenders — people who already have been arrested as a drunk driver, but keep driving drunk anyway. While repeat offenders represent only 20 per cent of those arrested for drunk driving, they are a very dangerous one-fifth. How can they be rehabilitated — or kept from driving?

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According to Houston’s Fox 26 TV, Harris County residents are more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than those of any other highly-populous county in the United States. (Harris County ranks third, with more than 4 million residents.)

This sobering threat to public safety is why local law enforcement agencies are gearing up to bring down the number of drunk drivers. They’re doing this via a multi-agency crackdown. Through Labor Day weekend, law officers will be working overtime to spot drunk drivers and get them off our roads, streets and highways.

Another part of the campaign is Choose Your Ride. This program emphasizes that those who drink should do anything but drive a vehicle. Instead, they are urged to take a cab or a bus, or ride with a sober friend or designated driver. Otherwise, they may wind up riding with a police officer — to jail.

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Across America, disgruntled drivers are leading a backlash against red light cameras, which remotely spot red-light runners who are notified by mail of their traffic violation. It seems these drivers dislike the fact that cities “use” such system for revenue streams.

Oh, so that’s what it’s about? It’s not about drivers being peeved that they were caught?

If revenue streams were a good reason for discontinuing such cameras, why draw the line? Should no one get a traffic fine for any violation — ever — because that would enhance a city’s revenue streams? Of course, then no one would be punished, and rampant law-breaking on our roads would cause more traffic accidents.

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