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“Street racing” has been defined as “an unsanctioned and illegal form of auto racing that occurs on a public road.” These races were once held on relatively isolated stretches of rural roads but, and in part, the success of movies that glorify street racing such as The Fast and the Furious and the television series Street Outlaws has led to a virtual explosion of street racing in urban areas such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Houston, and Tampa In…

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines an “autonomous,” or “automated” vehicle to be “… those in which at least some aspects of a safety-critical control function (e.g., steering, acceleration, or braking) occur without direct driver input.” The NHTSA and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) classify automated driving systems (ADSs) into one of six “levels” (where Level 0 is “warning only” and Level 6 is “fully automatic/no driver required”). Since only ADSs classified as Level 0 – 2…

At the the The Doan Law Firm, our staff routinely monitors both the print and electronic media for news reports suggesting the previously unreported or “under-reported” presence of a potential defect in popular consumer products. In today’s post we report on a recent accident involving a Tesla Model S that, according to its driver, suddenly accelerated before winding up in a Shanghai, China river. Whether or not this accident happened exactly as reported is not our issue. Instead, we call…

In a recent post, we reported on a South Florida auto accident involving a 2016 Tesla Model S which claimed the life of Omar Awan, a 48-year-old father of five. Although traffic accident fatalities are an almost routine occurrence in the Greater Miami area, this accident became newsworthy for two reasons: 1) a malfunction of the vehicle’s electronic door handles prevented rescuers from removing the victim after the driver-side airbag failed to deflate after inflating in response to the accident…

A longstanding goal of the “Green Revolution” has been the replacement of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines with those powered by electrical energy. This has led to the introduction of the first mass-produced “total electric” vehicles. However, concerns have been raised over the safety of such vehicles due to unresolved issues concerning their batteries. How the Accident Occurred The following account is compiled from several local news sources. Although we cannot speak of the accuracy of these reports, we…