Corpus Christi Law Blog

The results of the 2018 Brake Safety Week are out, so truckers and their employers in Texas will want to know how it went. Inspectors certified by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance pulled over a total of 35,080 commercial vehicles in the U.S. and Canada to check for compliance with brake safety rules, putting 4,955 or 14.1 percent out of service for violations.

The 2018 Brake Safety Week took place from Sept. 16 to 22 while the previous year saw only a one-day event. Despite the fewer number of trucks that were inspected, the percentage of those put out of service during Brake Safety Day was almost the same: 14 percent. Brakes violations made up 28.4 percent of the out-of-service violations during the CVSA's 2018 International Roadcheck, the most frequently cited violation.

Police in Texas say that a 21-year-old man was driving a truck loaded with 38 cattle while under the influence of drugs on Oct. 9. The man was taken into custody following a traffic stop on U.S. Highway 84 according to a Littlefield Police Department press release. After being booked, the man was turned over to the custody of the Lamb County Jail. Initial reports do not indicate if the man's bail has been set, but they do reveal that a sample of his blood was drawn for toxicology testing.

LPD officers say that they pulled over the cattle truck after receiving reports that it was being driven erratically. A caller is said to have told emergency operators that the vehicle was crossing the roadway from shoulder to shoulder. Officers claim that they took the man into custody after noticing clear signs of impairment, but the LPD press release does not reveal what those signs may have been. The truck and cattle were towed to a feed lot in Lubbock.

A growing number of Texas car buyers are choosing vehicles equipped with advanced systems designed to anticipate and prevent accidents. However, this technology may not be as effective as they believe. This was the conclusion reached by researchers from the American Automobile Association's Foundation for Traffic Safety after they polled 1,200 owners of 2016 and 2017 passenger vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems.

The AAA researchers say they were concerned by how little the motorists responding to their poll knew about the key limitations of advanced safety technology like blind-spot monitoring, emergency braking systems and adaptive cruise control. They say that their findings suggest that American drivers may not yet be ready to adapt to vehicles with even more sophisticated autonomous technology.

A study conducted by Volvo and The Harris Poll made some interesting findings regarding distracted driving. Texas drivers should know that the number one distraction for people behind the wheel is mobile devices. The people who admit to using their phones while driving, though, fall unexpectedly into several groups.

Specifically, Gen Xers are tied with Millennials as the most likely to use their phones while driving with 81 percent of those surveyed admitting it. Among members of Generation Z, 71 percent admitted using their phones while driving. Baby boomers were divided into two groups with 64 percent of older boomers and 72 percent of younger boomers admitting to using their phones while driving.