traffic fatality
Car accident deaths down, despite rise in distracted driving fatalities
Driving deaths overall are down in America, but could be much lower without one thing: distracted drivers who call or text at the wheel. A new report by the U.S. Department of Transportation reveals the United States had 33,963 traffic fatalities in 2009, a drop of 8.9 per cent from 2008. With driving deaths declining [...]
Texas’ biggest road menace? Uninsured motorists
As a Texas driver, what should be your biggest concerns on the road? Drunk drivers? Right up there. Speeding drivers? Certainly. But don’t forget drivers of 4.1 million more vehicles. That’s how many are uninsured, says the Texas Department of Insurance.
This is not to say all 4.1 million uninsured vehicles are driven recklessly and may [...]
Toyota document savors money saving at expense of stuck accelerator safety
The negligence of Toyota toward innocent American consumers seems to know no end. The latest sign of Toyota putting profits over public safety is found in an internal Toyota document from July 6, 2009, in which a company executive bragged that it was saving $100 million by negotiating a limited recall for Lexus ES and [...]
Texas, California cities are tops in drunks, spurring more drunk driving accidents
Drunk driving accounts for a whopping one third of all U.S. traffic fatalities, or about 12,000 Americans killed in the past year. But drunk driving isn’t the same throughout America. Some cities have worse problems than others with alcohol, as surveyed by Men’s Health magazine. It found Fresno, CA as the “most drunk city in [...]
Toyota stuck accelerator followed by Prius bad brakes defect
Will Toyota’s defective product failures ever stop? First it was SUV rollover calamities. Then it was stuck accelerator pedal catastrophes. Now it’s bad brakes on Toyota’s Prius, the world’s top-selling gas-electric hybrid vehicle.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has begun investigating flaws in the 2010 Prius’ brakes, after its safety arm, the National Highway Traffic Safety [...]
New national ban on bus, truck texting fights distracted driving car crash crush
Like a car on freshly-inflated tires, the national momentum to outlaw texting while driving keeps on rolling. Today the U.S. Department of Transportation placed an immediate ban on interstate commercial bus and truck drivers fidgeting with texting gadgets when they should be paying full attention to the road.
After all, they’re getting paid to drive, aren’t [...]
As car crash accidents rise, more states ban distracted driving via texting, talking by cell phone
Jim S. Adler & Associates has campaigned for years against the cell phone accident dangers of talking or texting while driving. Now many state governments are seeing the light. Nineteen states already ban texting while driving, while 23 more are assessing such legislation. In fact, 34 states are considering proposed bills either to ban or [...]
Toyota, Lexus stuck accelerator in a car crash merits a defective product lawsuit
Toyota and Lexus cars have a defect, and as a result, Americans are dying. It’s a stuck accelerator pedal, which gets snagged on a floor mat. Braking alone will not stop a car that’s in full and constant acceleration, which is why scores of Americans have been injured or killed.
Last October, four people died near [...]
San Antonio car crash law would protect cyclists, pedestrians, ‘vulnerable road users’
In increasingly urban Texas, bicyclists and pedestrians are increasingly endangered. Yet Gov. Rick Perry last year vetoed a bill — passed overwhelmingly by the Senate and House — which would have offered more protection to cyclists and walkers on or near our roads.
Now some cities, such as Austin, are enacting the same law on a [...]
Talking, texting, distracted driving in Texas school zones is illegal — sometimes
With 19 states and the District of Columbia now making it illegal to text while driving, you wonder when Texas will wise up. So far, only municipalities have passed such laws, the biggest being Austin. And the only state law on the books protects only school children by making it illegal to text or use [...]
