Costa Mesa auto accident and product injury legal blog

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is proposing to change its hours-of-service rules for commercial truck drivers in California and the rest of the nation. The organization is asking for comments from the public. The proposed changes will expand the air-mile 'short-haul" exemption, extend the on-duty limitation, revise the mandatory break for continuous driving and allow some drivers to split up the on-duty rest break. These proposed changes were posted in the Federal Register on August 23, 2018.

The FMCSA is also asking for comments regarding several safety scoring petitions that have been submitted that seek relief from the current rules. One is to enable covered commercial motor vehicle operators to take one rest break of up to three successive hours for every 14 hours they drive. The other petition is requesting that covered CMV operators be allowed to split up their required break periods instead of taking them all at once.

According to Caltrans, the X-Lite guardrail end treatment system will no longer be used on California highways. An investigation carried out by a local NBC station found that they were struck in at least nine accidents that resulted in fatalities. The state sent a letter to the manufacturer of the product saying that it would be switching to another product that met Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware standards.

A statement from the manufacturer said that its product had saved lives and reduced the severity of automobile accidents. However, a total of 13 states are in the process of removing the X-Lite guardrail as of 2018. In California, the X-Lite system is used mostly along Interstates 8 and 15. Roughly 20 percent of them are installed in San Diego County. Despite previous fatal accidents, Caltrans said it was only going to remove damaged guardrails and would further study any dangers associated with the X-Lite system.

Motorcycle riding is admittedly a riskier way to travel when compared to passenger cars. Motorcycles expose their riders to a variety of risks that car drivers do not have to face.

When it comes to risk-taking, conventional wisdom holds that the younger a driver is, the more likely he or she is to take a risk or drive in a way that's unsafe. That is also the generally held belief about people who ride motorcycles as opposed to car drivers. Is it true that younger motorcycle riders, such as those in the millennial generation (which the Pew Research Center considers as those born between 1981 and 1996), are more likely to get into a crash?

Scientists have created a potentially revolutionary 3D-printed device that could one day help spinal cord patients in California recover some bodily functions. The device was developed by a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota, and their findings were published Aug. 9.

The silicone device is a 3D-printed guide designed to hold neuronal stem cells, which are also printed on a 3D printer. The guide and stem cells are implanted into an injured spinal cord, where they serve as a bridge connecting the living nerve cells on both sides of the injured area. The connection could help patients regain some bodily functions, such as control of the bladder, bowel and certain muscles. It could also help reduce a patient's pain.