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Latest from West Coast Trial Lawyers Blog - Page 2

President-elect Joe Biden has reportedly recruited former South Bend, Indiana mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg to lead the U.S. Transportation Department.  Throughout his presidential bid during the primary, Buttigieg’s transportation platform, which called for a nationwide Vision Zero policy and for de-prioritizing highway expansions, received high marks from Transportation for America, a Washington organization that lobbies for transportation policy reform. As reported by CNN Business, because of Buttigieg’s work in South Bend, he’s the right person for the role given his track record, intellect, and view of transportation as about more than moving vehicles. He had success in…
The Los Angeles Police Commission has reportedly found a fatal shooting by an LAPD officer earlier this year partially violated LAPD policy given she continued to fire after he lay wounded on the ground. The panel found the last two shots fired by Officer Toni McBride at 38-year-old Daniel Hernandez on Apr. 22, her fifth and sixth rounds, were out of policy. The finding differed from Chief Michel Moore’s recommendation that the commission find the entire shooting within policy because McBride feared for her life and those of nearby bystanders. Hernandez had been involved in a vehicle collision on San…
Congress is reportedly working on passing a new coronavirus relief bill that would help public transit agencies across the country. The COVID-19 Emergency Relief Act of 2020 would grant $15 billion to mass transportation agencies to be distributed on the basis of Federal Transit Administration formulas.  To make sure that the funds don’t only go to major cities, the feds have restricted each urbanized area to no more than $4 billion in total relief between the new bill and the money granted to agencies through the last relief bill, the CARES Act, which was released in late March. No large…
Starting next year, Santa Monica will launch the country’s first zero-emissions delivery zone in early 2021. This will be a one-square-mile area in the beach town that will use small electric vehicles for parcel and food deliveries, and among the vehicles that will be using are electric cargo bikes, plug-in three wheelers, and robots. Expected to launch by early February, the delivery zone will be located in Santa Monica’s main shopping and dining hub, Main St. It will span from the city’s southern border at Dewey St. to Wilshire Blvd., and from the ocean eastward to Lincoln Blvd.  Quoted…
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, more people in Los Angeles have left their vehicles at home and taken out their bikes to the streets instead. And what was once a bike-unfriendly city, is slowly, but surely, changing.    Per data from the Los Angeles Police Department, there were 18 bike-vehicle collisions recorded in the city during Sep. 2020, down from 185 during the same period in 2019 — making it the lowest number ever recorded. Consequently, the number of cycling trips in the city logged by Strava Metro, which tracks data on bike usage in urban areas, rose…
Patients at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ spinal cord injury centers will reportedly be first to receive Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine from the federal agency. About 17,500 veterans live in the department’s community living centers and spinal cord injury centers. Residents and staff at these facilities will be first to receive the vaccine.   The VA already vaccinated its first patient on Dec. 14, a 96-year-old World War II veteran in Massachusetts.   Having received 73,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the VA will be distributing them to 37 facilities in areas with high veteran populations, such as Dallas, Cleveland, and…
California regulators reportedly issued a $59 million fine against Uber, and also threatened to suspend their license to operate in the state over the company’s refusal to hand over data on sexual assault on the platform.  According to the ruling issued by an administrative law judge of the California Public Utilities Commission, Uber has 30 days to come into compliance with a January 2020 order. It requests the date, time, and location of each reported assault, a description of the circumstances surrounding the incident, and names and contact information for both assault witnesses and “each person to whom the assault…
Uber Technologies Inc. reportedly raised its prices for customers in California recently, and DoorDash Inc. will soon follow. The added fees are destined to fund new driver perks the companies promised if Prop. 22 passed, which it did in November’s election. The ridesharing company said the cost to customers will vary depending on the city and type of service. For example, each food delivery bill in Los Angeles increased by 99 cents, the surcharge for rides is 75 cents. In San Francisco, it’s an additional $2 for food delivery and 30 cents for rides. Prices go as high as $1.50…
Throughout this year, the city of Los Angeles has been adding bus-only lanes to a handful of corridors in Downtown. And now, that effort has been extended to the neighboring communities of Westlake and Echo Park. Officials will study the feasibility of peak-hour bus-only lanes along a 1.6-mile stretch of Alvarado Street between 7th Street and Sunset Boulevard, according to a staff report issued by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.   The proposed project would reportedly convert existing peak-hour travel lanes between Mon. and Fri., operating from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. southbound, and from 3 p.m. to 7…
According to non-profit news organization Crosstown, Sep. marked a record for bike safety in Los Angeles. As more cyclists have hit the roads, the month had the fewest bicycle-vehicle collisions since the city began releasing data in 2012. As soon as the stay-at-home orders were put in place, bringing the closing of many businesses, Los Angeles’ roadways emptied out. Bicyclists took this opportunity to take advantage of this, and this study reports how the city has changed ever since in terms of traffic violence.    Per data from the Los Angeles Police Department, there were 18 bike-vehicle collisions recorded…