Latest Personal Auto Headlines
All the headlines from our Personal Auto Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Mass. Bill Would Mandate Background Checks for Rideshare Drivers
Mar 7 2016 // Massachusetts state lawmakers unveiled a bill that would regulate ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft with a requirement that drivers undergo rigorous criminal background checks but not fingerprinting. The House...
Google Self-Driving Car Hits Bus in California Crash
Mar 7 2016 // Alphabet Inc.’s Google self-driving car struck a municipal bus in a minor crash, in what may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle. In a Feb. 23 report filed with California...
Auto Insurer 2015 Underwriting Performance Loses Traction
Mar 7 2016 // Private passenger automobile insurance remains one of the most competitive segments in the U.S. property/casualty industry, with a number of large, well capitalized organizations battling for market share and searching for...
Regulators Back Nebraska Driver Who Wouldn’t Drive Unsafe Truck
Mar 4 2016 // Federal regulators want to punish a southeast Nebraska company that the regulators say wrongfully fired a driver who refused to operate a truck that violated Iowa law. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational...
Cabbies in Louisiana Parish Sue UberX Drivers
Mar 2 2016 // Taxi drivers in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish have filed a lawsuit claiming UberX drivers are picking up fares illegally in the parish. It’s the latest in a series of legal challenges to Uber’s operations...
Self-Driving Car Developers Betting on Senior Citizen Market
Mar 2 2016 // Florence Swanson has lived through every American car from the Ford Model T to the Tesla Model S. Now, at 94, she has stepped into what Google hopes will be the automotive future: self-driving vehicles. After her painting...
Google Takes Partial Blame After Self-Driving Car Hit Bus
Mar 1 2016 // Alphabet Inc.’s Google said on Monday it bears “some responsibility” after one of its self-driving cars struck a municipal bus in a minor crash earlier this month. The crash may be the first case of one...
Studies Weigh How Human Behaviors Affect Self-Driving Cars
Mar 1 2016 // How much people trust technology and what type of driving alerts they respond to may have as much or more to do with the success of autonomous vehicles than technological, legal and security concerns, according to two new...
Few Rideshare Drivers Have Insurance, But Interest is Growing
Feb 29 2016 // A large portion of rideshare drivers do not have the required insurance – but more are buying it, or seem to be more interested in it. According to a recent survey by the Rideshare Guy, roughly one-in-five rideshare...
Google Self-Driving Car Hits Bus in California Crash
Feb 29 2016 // Alphabet Inc.’s Google self-driving car struck a municipal bus in a minor crash, in what may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle. In a Feb. 23 report filed with California...
Rhode Island Lawmakers Eye Driver’s Licenses for Undocumented Immigrants
Feb 29 2016 // Lawmakers in Rhode Island are making another attempt to grant driving privileges to immigrants who are in the country illegally. Similar legislation stalled last year but state Sen. Frank Ciccone, a Providence Democrat,...
New York Classical Pianist Awarded $2.5M for Car Crash Injuries
Feb 26 2016 // A classical pianist from New York City who hurt his elbow in a car accident and can no longer play at the level he mastered has been awarded $2.5 million by a New Jersey jury. The award was against a motorist from...
$50M Suit Challenges Florida’s Suspension of Driver’s Licenses in DUI Cases
Feb 24 2016 // A federal lawsuit is challenging the way driver’s licenses are automatically taken away from drunken-driving suspects in Florida. The class-action lawsuit filed Feb. 17 in federal court in Orlando says the current...
Attacks by Michigan Uber Driver Renew Questions About Vetting Processes
Feb 23 2016 // The deaths of six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who authorities say were shot by a driver for Uber Technologies Inc., have revived scrutiny over how the ride service vets its drivers, an issue that has plagued it for...
Progressive Introduces Coverage for Rideshare Drivers in Texas
Feb 23 2016 // Progressive Insurance said it is now offering coverage for drivers of transportation network companies (TNCs) in Texas. The coverage will be a personal policy endorsement that fills most of the coverage gap between a...
GEICO Expands Ridesharing Coverage to South Carolina Drivers
Feb 23 2016 // GEICO is now offering a new ridesharing insurance product to drivers in South Carolina. GEICO’s ridesharing product replaces the driver’s personal auto policy and provides coverage for personal, ridesharing and...
Study: Terre Haute Has Fewer Driving Deaths
Feb 22 2016 // A consumer advocacy organization says Terre Haute is the Indiana city with the fewest distracted and drunken driving fatalities. ConsumerAffairs conducted a nationwide study using the latest available data from 2014...
U.S. Safety Agency to Google: Software Qualifies as a Driver
Feb 22 2016 // U.S. vehicle safety regulators have said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major step toward ultimately winning approval for...
Tennessee High Court Rules to Make it Easier to Arrest, Convict Drunk Drivers
Feb 19 2016 // In two unanimous decisions, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Feb. 11 that police have the right to stop motorists if their vehicles cross roadway markings, even if briefly, essentially making it easier to arrest and...
South Carolina Jury Awards $1M to Victim of Drunk Driver
Feb 10 2016 // A Richland County jury has awarded about $1 million in punitive damages to a woman injured in a car crash involving a repeat drunken driver. The State newspaper reported that a jury last week also awarded Jami Allison...
