Latest Personal Auto Headlines

All the headlines from our Personal Auto Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Nebraska Seeking New Ways to Warn Drivers About Deer

Nov 15 2018 // You’ve seen them — the yellow signs along the state’s rural roadways that warn of a deer crossing ahead. Trouble is, researchers say, we mostly ignore such warnings. It presents a quandary for highway safety...

New Jersey Court Ruling Could Erase 20K Drunken Driving Convictions

Nov 15 2018 // A ruling issued Tuesday by the New Jersey Supreme Court could cause more than 20,000 drunken driving convictions to be vacated. The justices unanimously found that criminal charges pending against a state police sergeant...

Officials: Driver Was Huffing Before Crash That Killed Wisconsin Girl Scouts, Mom

Nov 6 2018 // A young driver was inhaling chemical vapors, or huffing, just prior to striking and killing three Girl Scouts and a mother and critically injuring a fourth girl who had been picking up trash along a rural Wisconsin...

Ohio’s New Distracted Driving Law Now in Effect

Nov 5 2018 // A new Ohio law aimed at cutting down on distracted driving in the state went into effect on Oct. 29. The Ohio Department of Public Safety says House Bill 95 will be a significant distracted driving deterrent and an...

Kemper’s Strong Third Quarter Includes Infinity Results

Nov 5 2018 // Kemper Corp. reported net income of $92.2 million for the third quarter of 2018, compared to $47.7 million for the third quarter of 2017. As adjusted for the acquisition in the quarter of nonstandard auto insurer Infinity,...

Uber Asks to Resume Self-Driving Tests in Penn., Improves Vehicle Software

Nov 5 2018 // Uber Technologies Inc has asked Pennsylvania for permission to resume self-driving car testing on public roads and has improved the autonomous vehicle software, the company said on Friday, more than seven months after it...

Waymo Cleared to be First in California for Testing Without Backup Driver

Oct 30 2018 // Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit on Tuesday became the first company to receive a permit from the state of California to test driverless vehicles without a backup driver in the front seat, the state’s Department of...

What’s Happening and What Lies Ahead for P/C Insurance Pricing: Moody’s

Oct 30 2018 // The current pricing environment for property/casualty insurers is “modestly positive,” with commercial and personal auto rates rising by mid-to-high single digits, homeowners and commercial property rates...

10 Students, Driver Injured in Central Texas School Bus Crash

Oct 26 2018 // Investigators say 10 students and their school bus driver were injured when the vehicle was broadsided by an 18-wheeler on a Central Texas highway. The Texas Department of Public Safety says nobody was seriously hurt in...

Ohio Village Has 10 Years to Refund Drivers in Traffic Camera Case

Oct 25 2018 // A judge will allow an Ohio village 10 years to refund an estimated $3.2 million collected from drivers for speeding citations from automated camera. New Miami’s automatic camera enforcement was ruled unconstitutional...

NJM Hires Callahan to Expand Teen Driver Safety Program in Pennsylvania

Oct 24 2018 // NJM Insurance Group (NJM), a property and casualty insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., has hired Jeneen M. Callahan to lead the expansion of its Teen Driver Safety Program into Pennsylvania. In her role,...

Teens Urged to ‘Flip the Script’ on Parents This Teen Driver Safety Week

Oct 24 2018 // Four-in-10 parents of teen drivers don’t talk to their kids about safe driving on a regular basis. That factoid, says survey sponsor Allstate, could be an incentive for teens to “flip the script” and...

Federal Safety Agency Shuts Down Self-Driving School Bus Test

Oct 23 2018 // The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday said it had ordered Transdev North America to immediately stop transporting school children in Florida in a driverless shuttle, as the testing could be putting...

How States Are Battling Distracted Driving

Oct 22 2018 // Like many diligent public servants, Georgia state Representative Ed Setzler enjoys crowing about a nice, tidy highway project. In a Sept. 8 Facebook video, the Republican appeared to be doing just that from behind the...

London’s Biggest Private Taxi Firm Aims to Roll Out Self-Driving Cars by 2021

Oct 22 2018 // A fleet of autonomous taxis could roll onto the streets of the U.K. capital within three years, after one of London’s biggest private-hire taxi companies struck a deal with a maker of autonomous vehicle...

NTSB: Texas Driver’s Drug Use Led to Deadly Church Bus Crash

Oct 19 2018 // A motorist’s use of marijuana and a sedative led to a collision with a church bus that killed 13 people on the bus, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report released on Oct. 16. According to the...

Uber Driver Charged with Kidnapping New York Woman

Oct 18 2018 // An Uber driver in New York City kidnapped a woman who fell asleep in his vehicle, groped her in the back seat and then left her on the side of a highway in Connecticut, federal authorities said Tuesday. Harbir Parmar, 24,...

National Safety Board Calls for Standards for Drugged Driving Tests

Oct 18 2018 // U.S. transportation safety officials are sounding the alarm on drug-impaired driving, calling for state and federal regulators to do more to tackle the growing problem as states grapple with prescription drug abuse and...

How to Make Self-Driving Cars Safer on Roads with Humans

Oct 18 2018 // As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Congress press for removing safety regulations in order to fast-track the introduction of highly automated vehicles, human factors/ergonomics experts are...

Insurer Group Hammers Claim that California Prop 103 Saved Drivers Billions

Oct 17 2018 // The insurance industry is taking exception to a new report commemorating the 30th anniversary of one of California’s primary auto insurance laws that claims the law has saved drivers billions of dollars. The Consumer...