Murrieta Personal Injury Law Blog

California residents might not know that drowsy driving kills up to 6,000 people every year. Though fatigued driving can be as dangerous as drunk driving, not as much focus is given to this topic. One group thinks they have found a way to prevent drowsy driving.

A Kickstarter campaign has seen early success when it comes to creating a wearable device that shocks drivers who start to doze off. The device is called Steer and was created by a group called Creative Mode. Steer utilizes biometric sensors that measure sweat secretion and heart rate. If either indicator differs too much from a baseline reading, Steer vibrates around a driver's wrist. If readings continue to shift, the device delivers a shock next.

Residents of California may be concerned with the increasing trend of fatal truck accidents since 2009. There are a variety of reasons for these troublesome trends, and they mean more people are likely to be involved in a truck accident. Lawsuits for commercial trucking accidents work differently than normal vehicle accident lawsuits.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is one of the government agencies primarily responsible for the oversight and regulation of commercial trucking. The agency routinely collects and analyzes crash and other important data related to the industry and shares this information with the public. One important part of the data involved trends in fatal trucking accidents. While trucking accidents overall have decreased from their peak in 2005, they have increased steadily since 2009.

California's Department of Motor Vehicles signaled its intention to allow self-driving cars onto the state's roads by proposing autonomous vehicle testing and deployment guidelines in March 2017, but road safety advocates and many lawmakers believe that this is an issue that should be regulated at the federal level. They worry that a patchwork of state laws is creating an inconsistent regulatory landscape and could allow unproven and possibly unsafe technology onto the roads.

Measures are being considered in both the Senate and the House that would place restrictions on autonomous vehicle development, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee is mulling a proposal that would compel car makers to obtain certification for their self-driving systems before testing them on public roads. Groups like the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety are strong proponents of nationwide autonomous vehicle standards and have urged lawmakers to act sooner rather than later.

The refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a class-action case presented by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association allows a lower court ruling to stand. At issue was the extent of driver violations shared by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration through the Pre-Employment Screening Program. With the lawsuit's claims of privacy violation dismissed, truck drivers in California can expect any infractions, including minor ones, to be available to truck companies screening potential employees.

A group of truck drivers with the support of the OOIDA had insisted that the FMCSA "intentionally and willfully" exceeded the scope of their mission in disclosing violations about individual truckers that could impact their ability to find work. They argued that the pre-employment screening reports should only contain information about serious safety violations instead of issues such as weight violations, speeding of only 10 mph or less over the limit, failing to adhere to hours rules and inaccurate logs. They based their lawsuit on the 1974 Privacy Act.