Los Angeles Personal Injury Law Blog

The ongoing bureaucratic process to reform federal trucking safety regulations features plenty of detailed scientific arguments about the risks caused by truck driver fatigue, including deadly truck accidents. The primary regulatory response to this problem is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) proposed changes to the Hours-of-Service (HOS) rule.

Proposed changes to the HOS rule would create marginally tighter restrictions on how many hours drivers can spend behind the wheel, how much time they must spend off duty and other factors that influence whether commercial driver's license holders become overtired. Not surprisingly, some trucking industry groups have taken a hard stand against overdue safety measures that could affect their profits.

A new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance industry safety group, says that the safety of children's booster seats has improved in recent years, but half still do not ensure that a child is properly placed when wearing a seat belt.

The IIHS evaluated booster seats on how well they fit four- to eight-year-old children who outgrew forward-facing child-safety seats but who must be raised up to fit behind a seat belt properly, reported USA Today.

Proper positioning of seat belts is vitally important because of the risk of serious personal injury to children from the seat belts themselves during car accidents. If a seat belt does not cross the child's lap and shoulder correctly, the belt can cut into internal organs in a crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Ad Council and various states' attorneys general have announced a new campaign to fight teenage texting while driving. This campaign, called "Stop the Texts, Stop the Wrecks," will target the biggest culprits of texting while driving: 16-24 year old drivers.

The campaign is an attempt to mimic similar past campaigns that successfully targeted big tobacco and drunk driving. Advertising campaigns can be very useful tools, especially when the laws aren't strong enough to stop people from texting while driving. For example, in California, texting while driving is against the law; however, violators of the law need only pay twenty dollars for a first offense and fifty dollars for each subsequent offense.

When truck drivers make right turns, they often have to swing out into the left lane to avoid running over a curb or the people waiting to cross the street. If they do not give themselves a wide-enough turn area or swing out too far, they can cause serious accidents.

Signs on the back of trucks warn drivers, "This truck makes wide right turns." However, the signs are not enough to prevent right turn truck crashes. According to the Los Angeles truck accident lawyers at the Law Offices of Kottler & Kottler, as well as safety advocates throughout the country, we must do more to protect people from serious truck accidents, especially since technology is available that does just that.