With the new year came new laws, including a new California car seat law that requires children to use a booster seat until they are age 8 or 4 feet, 9 inches tall. The previous California law only required children to remain in car seats until they were 6 years old or weighed 60 pounds. […]

We’re all familiar with motor vehicle recalls. They happen all the time. Whether you hear about it in the news or receive a letter from the manufacturer, we’ve owned cars that have been recalled at one point or another. But how exactly does an automobile manufacturer decide whether to issue a recall? And what is […]

The roads can be dangerous, especially during the holiday season where there are more travelers than normal. Anything that can be done to decrease the number of serious injuries from car accidents on our nation’s highways is a good thing. That’s why we occasionally highlight new safety features in cars–because they really can make a […]

Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a press release detailing its plans to move forward with the implementation of a nationwide ban on the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices (PED) while driving a car. The driving force behind the proposed regulation is to prevent car accidents caused by distracted driving, thus making […]

Despite sensationalistic news headlines to the contrary, it seems that in 2010, traffic fatalities were the lowest they’ve been in decades. In fact, as explained in this thenewspaper.com blog post, the last time the numbers this low was in the 1940s: Fewer people died on America’s roads than at any time in the past sixty-one […]

Texting while driving is an extremely dangerous practice that is becoming increasingly common. The danger presented it that of a distracted driver whose eyes are on his or her smart phone rather than the road. And, any time a driver is distracted, the likelihood of a car accident increases exponentially. We’ve discussed the dangers of […]

Car seats provide children, the most vulnerable of passengers, with much-needed extra protection in the event of a car accident. However, when they’re not installed correctly, car seats don’t protect children the way that they are designed to. And, unfortunately, according to a recent study, many parents continue to have difficulties installing car seats properly. […]

Will new found innovations make cars smarter and safer? Perhaps. And given how frequently car accidents occur and how serious the injuries can be, it’s never a bad idea to make automobiles safer. In the past, we discussed how the National Highway Transportation Safety Association was behind a push to have black boxes installed in […]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on July 29, 2011 that Ford is recalling 1.1 million pickup trucks due to defective fuel tanks. Reports have indicated that prolonged exposure to road deicing chemicals may cause severe corrosion of the fuel tank straps that secure the tank to the vehicle, allowing the fuel lines […]