It’s slowly becoming an undisputed reality that distracted driving is dangerous and state governments should ban the use of hand held devices behind the wheel. Calling for more research and deterrence, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will host the second annual distracted driving summit in Washington DC this September.
Though the leak at BP’s infamous off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon appears to be contained, class action lawsuits against the company and its affiliates are heating up and could put the companies on the hook for tens of billions of dollars. That process begins Thursday at an Idaho hearing to decide which judges will reside over the cases, and where they will take place.
Early Thursday morning, a tragic Greyhound bus accident in Fresno, California caused six deaths and more than 30 injuries. Accidents this tragic are rare but not rare enough. Taking a look at bus accidents over the last decade, Greyhound has consistently been involved in major accidents that led to multiple deaths and dozens of injuries. In the last two years alone, Greyhound busses have been involved in nearly 140 bus accidents that led to injuries, deaths, or towed vehicles, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Take a look at ten notable Greyhound accidents over the past decade.
On first glance, the concept behind SafeRoadMaps.org seems pretty grim. The Center for Excellence in Rural Safety has collected information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to enables users to find the intersections with the highest number of traffic accidents in their home towns. In addition to informing the public about a community’s most dangerous intersections, the website’s stated goal is to inspire drivers to change their dangerous bad driving habits.
A Greyhound bus driving from Los Angeles to Sacramento collided with an overturned SUV in California’s Central Valley on Highway 99 near Fresno early Thursday morning. To avoid a second collision, confirms California Highway Patrol Officer Michelle Sigmond, the driver of the Greyhound swerved and crashed in to a concrete divider and a large eucalyptus tree. The accident led to 6 deaths and 34 injuries.
For the past few months, Congress has been debating an auto safety overhaul to help make vehicles safer in the wake of Toyota’s unintended acceleration problems that led to the recall of more than nine million vehicles worldwide. But due to strong industry pressure and the volatile political situation in Washington, critics say the bill will have a limited impact on auto safety here in the US. Yesterday, consumer advocates explained their criticisms in a Washington press conference.
It has been a big year for class action lawsuits. Most recently, thousands of Toyota drivers have sued the Japanese auto giant for injuries and loss of investment resulting from unintended acceleration, and victims of the BP Gulf oil spill disaster are lining up to take on the British oil conglomerate in court. Both of those budding class action battles pale in comparison to the legal storm about to engulf WalMart, which is being sued for gender discrimination by more than a million women in potentially the largest class action suit ever. To put this in perspective, we decided to round up a list of other massive class action titans over the past two decades.
If you need to cross the street a busy intersection, you’re likely to wait for the traffic light to indicate when crossing is safe. But many busy multi-lane intersections marked with crosswalks throughout California don’t have such a traffic light. As a result, a San Mateo jury ruled this month that such marked crosswalks are often more dangerous than unmarked intersection because they give pedestrians a false sense of safety while crossing at busy intersections.
Last week a group of Toyota supporters and anti-attorney advocates celebrated when the Wall Street Journal reported that early findings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that many of the unintended acceleration claims against the Japanese auto giant were the fault of driver error, not vehicle electronics.
Each season comes with a new set of activities made possible by the change in schedules and weather. Though summer tends to be a little depressing for me for its lack of opportunities to ski, there are more chances for activities in parks, on lakes, and under the sun. Along with these new activities come the danger of a new set of injuries unique to the summer.
Ben Buchwalter is Director of Client Outreach for GJEL Accident Attorneys. Before joining GJEL, he studied political science at Haverford College and worked as a writer and researcher for Mother Jones Magazine and Talking Points Memo. Ben enjoys skiing, public transportation, and television detective dramas.
