Recent Blog Posts in March 2011

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) acts to prevent fatalities and injuries caused by commercial motor vehicles. The FMCSA enforces safety regulations for carriers and commercial motor vehicle drivers. Currently, truck drivers are limited to an 11-hour driving time limit, but the FMCSA is recommending that the limit be ten hours. Here's what the American Association for Justice has to say about the issue:

Proposed rules for commercial truck drivers do not provide the adequate level of protection needed to prevent driver fatigue, according to comments submitted today by the American Association for Justice (AAJ). The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has recommended a 10-hour driving time limit, but indicated they are open to maintaining the current 11-hour requirement.

AAJ also opposes FMCSA's proposed 34-hour restart period, which would allow truck drivers to bypass the 60/70-hour duty limit. This 34-hour restart period cannot ensure a truck driver receives proper rest. AAJ recommends that the FMCSA mandate a 48-hour restart requirement to provide commercial truck drivers with greater rest and recovery time after working long hours. It would also shorten the work week, meaning less fatigued drivers and safer highways.

The Reno Gazette Journal reports today that a Consumer Reports poll reveals the high usage of cell phones while driving:

63 percent of young people admit to using a handheld phone while driving, and 30 percent admit to sending text messages while driving.

Nevada is one of the minority of states that does not ban text messaging or cell phone use while driving. Many states prohibit or limit cell phone use and texting, especially among teen drivers. Click here for a state-by-state list of cell phone driving laws.

Alarmingly, the Consumer Reports poll revealed that only 30 percent of those under 30 believe that such behavior is very dangerous. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, distracted driving accidents caused nearly 5,500 deaths in the U.S. in 2009.

The following is a statement from American Association for Justice (AAJ) President Gibson Vance in response to H.R. 5, a "medical liability reform" bill that was introduced late yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives:

"After repealing a bill that provided health insurance to over 30 million Americans, the next proposal from the new House leadership is to take away the legal rights of injured patients, remove any incentive to improve safety, and leave people at risk for more injuries from negligent care. This is the most perverse form of legislating imaginable.

"Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine found that as many as 98,000 people die every year from preventable medical errors. Recent studies have confirmed the problem is only getting worse.

"This bill will impose severe, one-size-fits-all caps on damages that injured patients can seek - not just when injured by medical negligence, but also by defective drugs, medical devices, or abuse suffered in nursing homes. It even extends this cap to health care providers that intentionally harm or kill patients, as well as insurance companies that refuse to pay just claims for medical bills.

"The bill is beyond extreme. Its authors should focus on real measures that will improve patient safety, not provide welfare to drug and insurance companies that stand to gain the most from this proposal.

"By removing legal accountability, attention to safety will go down and more people will suffer injuries and death from negligent care. Congress should put patient safety first."

The Associated Press reports that the Department of Justice wants tobacco companies to fess up, publicly. The government released "corrective statements" that it proposes that tobacco companies should be required to make.

Here are a few of the statements, as reported by the AP:

• "A federal court is requiring tobacco companies to tell the truth about cigarette smoking. Here's the truth: ... Smoking kills 1,200 Americans. Every day."
• "We falsely marketed low tar and light cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes to keep people smoking and sustain our profits."
• "For decades, we denied that we controlled the level of nicotine delivered in cigarettes," a third statement says. "Here's the truth. ... We control nicotine delivery to create and sustain smokers' addiction, because that's how we keep customers coming back."
• "We told Congress under oath that we believed nicotine is not addictive. We told you that smoking is not an addiction and all it takes to quit is willpower. Here's the truth: Smoking is very addictive. And it's not easy to quit."
• "Just because lights and low tar cigarettes feel smoother, that doesn't mean they are any better for you. Light cigarettes can deliver the same amounts of tar and nicotine as regular cigarettes."
• "The surgeon general has concluded" that "children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more severe asthma."

Not surprisingly, these statements are met with opposition from the tobacco companies. Phillip Morris wants the Justice Department to water down those corrective statements to comply with an appellate court decision stating that corrective statements must be purely factual and uncontroversial.

The tobacco companies must respond to the proposed statements by March 3.

Credit Pete Yost of AP via MSNBC