Riverside County Personal Injury Law Blog

Automobile consumers in California have looked to the federal five-star safety rating system since the 1990s when shopping for new vehicles. The New Car Assessment Program emerged under the strong leadership of a safety advocate while she served at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. As part of her current work for the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, this person has written a report criticizing the federal government's failure to evolve the safety rating system in recent years. Europe, Asia and Latin America now put more effort into vehicle safety testing than the United States.

European regulators administer four times more safety tests than U.S. regulators. Vehicle systems that could detect pedestrians have been ignored by U.S. safety authorities. Real-world data about how new safety technologies actually perform is collected within the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, but the database remains largely inaccessible to the buying public because it is geared toward academic and industry researchers.

Any car accident is upsetting, but it is especially disturbing when multiple cars are involved. One of the largest car accidents in the United States involved 194 cars. Thankfully, there were no fatalities in this incident, but it was likely a legal nightmare afterward. California drivers may wonder how it is determined who is at fault in an accident like this.

At least three vehicles need to hit one another in order for it to qualify as a multi-car accident. These types of accidents usually involve one vehicle rear-ending another and starting a chain reaction. Carelessness or driving while distracted are often to blame for multi-car accidents.

Truck accidents are a growing concern in California. Because the state is a prominent destination for deliveries and produces a variety of products shipped across the country, these vehicles are constantly on the road. The risks of a truck crash have long been significant with truckers under the influence, drowsy truckers and reckless driving. In recent years, however, new dangers associated with distracted driving have been added to the list.

A plan to conduct a new truck accident study will consider distracted driving. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, will analyze the factors in accidents that led to injuries, fatalities and the need to tow the vehicles involved. A goal is to use onboard systems that track when truck drivers were traveling at excessive speeds, departed from their lanes or hit the brakes hard.

When you drive on a one-way street, you expect every motorist to be going the same direction you are. Unfortunately, though, that does not always happen. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that there are between 300 and 400 wrong-way car accidents on U.S. roadways every year. 

If you drive at night, on weekends or near medians, you may have an increased risk of colliding with a wrong-way driver. Even worse, wrong-way crashes often result in serious injuries, as many are head-on collisions. Here are four reasons these types of collisions tend to occur.