Last month, Japanese auto part maker Takata announced that it would be expanding its recall of U.S. cars and trucks fitted with defective airbags. The expansion brought the recall to 34 million U.S. vehicles, making it the largest auto recall in American history. 53 million vehicles have been recalled worldwide. As part of the recall,…
April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and motorists across the country are being urged to remember the dangers of distractions behind the wheel. In Texas, safety advocates and officials from the Texas Department of Transportation teamed up earlier this month to launch the annual statewide “Talk, Text, Crash” campaign. Like national efforts to increase…
A new study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is garnering national attention for a shocking set of videos that show distracted teen drivers in action. The study – which was released just in time for April’s National Distracted Driving Awareness Month – was designed to determine how common and dangerous distractions are among…
Over the past several days, officials from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) – the agency tasked with investigating claims regarding the potential dangers of ET-Plus guardrails – have been zealously defending their investigation and analysis methods. The FHWA has been on the defense since being criticized for recently giving the controversial ET-Plus guardrail system a…
Safety regulators from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have announced that they will be launching a $4 million study on driver fatigue and commercial trucking safety. The FMCSA – a government agency tasked with regulating commercial freight and passenger carrying companies – will be working with researchers from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute…
A recent study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is reporting that better vehicle designs, more safety features, and other technological innovations have helped significantly save lives on American roadways. According to the study – which analyzed crash reports involving 2011 model cars during the 2012 calendar year – auto safety improvements have…
Last Friday – January 30, 2015 – Honda announced that an airbag manufactured by the Japanese auto parts company Takata Corporation ruptured in a fatal collision that killed a man in the Houston area in January. The death is the sixth fatality linked to defective airbags in Honda vehicles, in addition to at least 52 confirmed injuries….
Each year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) publishes a list of its most wanted transportation safety improvements. The list is designed to highlight serious issues Americans face as motorists and passengers – by land, sea, or air – and to suggest changes that will help reduce transportation accidents and save lives. The Most Wanted…
The first of the year is an important time for policymakers because many new laws officially take effect. In addition to national legislation becoming law, many bills in cities and states across the nation also take hold beginning with the New Year. In Texas, 2015 brought with it a number of new laws, including several…
The holiday season is a time for celebrations and get-togethers, and many of them involve alcohol. Because of this, holidays tend to see higher rates of alcohol-related traffic accidents, injuries, and deaths than other days of the year. In Texas, crash data from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) show that the state sees a…
