Seat belts are standard equipment on every car that is produced in the United States. There are laws requiring that they be worn and people who have done nothing else wrong can be ticketed. The general reasoning is that seat belts save lives, so they must be worn to...
How car accidents rank against other unintentional deaths
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention carried out a study to look at unintentional deaths in the United States. They found that there were 130,557 such deaths, meaning that 41.3 people for every 100,000 people in the United States died unintentionally. This...
Higher speed limits don’t cause more accidents
If you were asked why there are speed limits in California, would you say that it's to reduce the amount of accidents that happen? If so, this is a common misconception. The reduction of speed limits actually started out largely as a fluke. Speeds were reduced in the...
Should we wear helmets in the car?
Most people don't wear any safety gear while they drive. These same people may be very adamant about wearing helmets while biking or skateboarding, but they would never wear one in a car. Instead, they trust that the car's design -- the crash impact zones, seat belts,...
Car accidents are a major reason for childhood deaths
Parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe. They buy them safety equipment—like bike helmets—for dangerous activities, they take them to the doctor when they're sick, and they work hard to keep an eye on them at all times. However, children are still...
How many chances does a truly problematic truck driver get?
Stating that his "continued operation of a commercial motor vehicle … puts the motoring public at imminent risk for serious bodily injury or death," federal safety regulators took action to permanently take away the driving privileges of one commercial truck driver...
Are commercial trucking inspectors simply overburdened?
Every day across the country, and in every state from California to Maine, roadside inspections of commercial trucking rigs are carried out. And for good reason, obviously. America's 18-wheel tractor-trailers and other roadway giants are colossal entities on state and...
National traffic safety news: mixed results, with an alarming trend
In the realm of traffic accidents, a decidedly mixed state of affairs -- let's call it a good-news, bad-news scenario -- seems to be operative in the United States, at least from a national perspective. On the one hand, and as reported in a recent media article...
California teen driving law: no decal, but lots of other mandates
A provisional driver's licensing law for teen motorists has been in force in California for many years, with myriad age- and experience-specific prerequisites (hurdles, if you will) that must be satisfied en route to any teen obtaining a full-privilege license. Would...
DOT/car maker pact: all good now, or just an uneasy alliance?
The auto-manufacturing industry has long shown that it chafes under a regulatory regime that primarily focuses upon rule making and punitive actions. And, on the flip side, federal regulators have equally shown that they are sometimes not up to the task of keeping...