Fiat Chrysler Recalls Millions of Vehicles for Cruise Controls That Might Not Disengage
Fiat Chrysler is once again making headlines with a sizable and serious recall. While previous recalls involved everything from fire hazards to disabled seatbelt pretensioners, ranging in scope and severity, the newest recall apparently involves a software bug that could keep a vehicle's cruise control engaged even when the driver tries to cancel it. That's...
New Data Shows Houston Leads the Nation in Distracted Driving
All the major Lone Star cities see their share of DWI injuries and fatalities every year, but as I've noted, Houston is the undisputed state champ in that department--not that the crown is anything to covet. Not content with that infamy, Houston apparently grew even more ambitious. Thanks to information recently put out by a...
Bum Steer: Ford Recalls 1.4 Million Vehicles for Potential Detaching Steering Wheels
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Cars are complicated machines, and they've only gotten more so with over a century of technological refinement. Having noted that a working vehicle is something of a mechanical marvel and that the layman might not fully understand its every working, it's also safe to say most...
The Bigger They Are, The Slower They Stop: The Importance of Following and Braking Distance
It no secret that as more people more to Texas, our roads become increasingly crowded. One of the first casualties of crowded roadways is proper following distance between vehicles. An incident in Southeast Texas made me ponder this dangerous element of modern driving culture. Copperas Cove, TX: January 17, 2018 65-year-old Roseann Lucidi of Kempner...
Can We Just Assume That Every Wrong-Way Driver is Drunk?
Wrong-way drivers are freaking scary. How does a driver even find himself on the wrong side of the road, let alone stay there long enough to crash? I have a theory about it, actually: Pretty much every wrong-way driver is a drunk driver. I hate to speculate and then be wrong, but when I read...
Lubbock Accident Shows Appearance Doesn’t Match Reality
There is an old joke that when you don't know what a Shakespeare play is about, just say it concerns "appearance versus reality" and you'll always be right. For years, we've said something similar about almost every car accident that appears in the news. Crash victims call us up all the time with tales of...
Click It Or Ticket 2017 Has Begun, But Just Buckle Up So You Don’t Get Obliterated
Monday, May 22 marks the beginning of the Texas Department of Transportation's two-week "Click It Or Ticket" campaign. Until June 4, Texas law enforcement officers will actively ticket drivers and passengers who are not wearing seatbelts. People whose young children are not riding in appropriate child-safety seats or booster seats will also be subject to...
How Do I Discover the Other Driver’s Insurance Policy Limits?
I've learned over the years that the quickest way to make people's eyes glaze over is to either discuss evidentiary rules in Texas courts or to talk about insurance. Despite being a topic that doesn't make people scream, "Oh, tell me more," following a fatal accident, knowing how insurance works is crucial to the surviving...
There Are More Daytime Drunk Drivers Than We Realized.
It's widely understood that the hours of midnight to 4 a.m. are a risky time to be on the road. It's not a baseless assumption; in Texas, our roads see an unfortunate number of drunk drivers taking to the streets around the time of last call. Indeed, this phenomenon is so well appreciated that most...
Are Passengers “Assuming the Risk” When They Ride with Drunk Drivers?
Everyone can probably agree that riding with a drunk driver is dangerous. However a passenger may have ended up in the vehicle (not knowing that the driver was intoxicated, or maybe even just drunk themselves) there's a significant measure of danger in sharing it with a drunk person behind the wheel. If we were to...
