Transportation Law Commons^™

Transportation Racism And State-Created Danger: A Civil Rights Litigation Strategy For Pedestrians Harmed By Traffic Violence, Riley Freedman

Washington Law Review

Pedestrian fatality rates in the United States are markedly high compared to peer nations and are on the rise. The distribution of these deaths shows an alarming racial gap: Black pedestrians are twice as likely to be killed compared to white pedestrians. One significant factor that explains the disparity is the greater presence of wide, high-speed roads—built to move traffic quickly at the expense of pedestrian safety—in Black neighborhoods. In some cases, there is evidence that governments intentionally placed roads through and around Black neighborhoods for racially discriminatory reasons.

This Comment argues that a pedestrian harmed or killed by a …

Surprises In The Skies: Resolving The Circuit Split On How Courts Should Determine Whether An "Accident" Is "Unexpected Or Unusual" Under The Montreal Convention, Ashley Tang

Washington Law Review

Article 17 of both the Montreal Convention and its predecessor, the Warsaw Convention, imposes liability onto air carriers for certain injuries and damages from “accidents” incurred by passengers during international air carriage. However, neither Convention defines the term “accident.” While the United States Supreme Court opined that, for the purposes of Article 17, an air carrier’s liability “arises only if a passenger’s injury is caused by an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger,” it did not explain what standards lower courts should employ to discern whether an event is “unexpected or unusual.” In 2004, …

Ridesharing's House Of Cards: O'Connor V. Uber Technologies, Inc. And The Viability Of Uber's Labor Model In Washington, Henry Ross

Washington Law Review

Ridesharing companies, namely Uber and Lyft, have taken the transportation market by storm. These companies offer a competitive alternative to taxis through using smartphone apps and more efficient service offerings. As part of their business model, ridesharing companies treat their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees to minimize labor costs. However, drivers do not benefit from remedial labor statutes and thus (1) must pay for operating costs, (2) are not guaranteed a minimum wage, and (3) do not receive overtime pay. In O’Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc., a class of California Uber drivers are challenging their independent contractor …

Reverse Presumptions: Guillen V. Pierce County Disregards Reasonable Constitutional Interpretations Of 23 U.S.C. § 409, Megan Walseth

Washington Law Review

To prove that dangerous roadways caused their traffic accidents, plaintiffs often seek discovery of highway information from state and local governments. Title 23 U.S.C. § 409 bars discovery of some of that information; it creates an evidentiary privilege for materials and data collected for certain federal highway safety funding programs. For example, state and local governments receiving funds through the federal hazard elimination program codified at 23 U.S.C. § 152 must maintain an engineering survey of all state public roads. Section 409, in turn, makes certain data and materials compiled or collected for § 152 exempt from discovery and inadmissible …

Recognizing The Liability Of Social Hosts Who Knowingly Allow Intoxicated Guests To Drive: Limits To Socially Acceptable Behavior, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Washington Law Review

Gradually, courts have joined these efforts to alleviate the harm caused by the intoxicated driver. A few courts have recognized an action in tort against those who contribute to drunken driving by serving intoxicating liquor. These courts have acted, in part, to relieve victims of the costs of drunken driving and to distribute the costs among those responsible for its occurrence. Washington courts should recognize the liability of a negligent social purveyor of alcoholic beverages. Courts need not be constrained from recognizing a common law cause of action because of competing social interests or legislative inaction. Washington courts should rule …

Caveat Viator: The Duty To Wear Seat Belts Under Comparative Negligence Law, John A. Hoglund, A. Peter Parsons

Washington Law Review

The first portion of this article will attempt to show that neither judicial nor legislative reluctance, nor its underlying reasoning, is justifiable in light of the current state of law and society. Substantial evidence will be presented to demonstrate the need for our society to adopt the seat belt habit and for the law to recognize and respond to this societal need. Reactions of courts and legislative bodies to suggestions of mandated use are then explored as a preliminary to an analysis of the common law basis for adoption of the seat belt rule. A careful explanation will then be …

The Effect Of Presumption Of Common Carrier Negligence Upon The Burden Of Proof, Anon

Washington Law Review

Plaintiff, a common carrier truck line, sought to recover charges from the United States for transportation of a delicate and expensive camera. The government counterclaimed for damages exceeding plaintiff's charges. The counterclaim was advanced by proof of the camera's delivery to plaintiff in good condition and its arrival in damaged condition. Plaintiff replied by showing that the damage was the consequence of defective packaging by a United States employee. Being unable to prove that, notwithstanding defective packaging, the damage proximately resulted from the carrier's negligence in handling the camera, the United States was denied its counterclaim and adjudged liable for …

Definition Of Gross Negligence Under The Guest Statute, Anon

Washington Law Review

On a bright summer morning, defendant slowed her automobile, intending to make a left turn. The road stretched dry and straight before her for more than a mile. She turned on her left signal blinker, observed a truck in the distance coming toward her, and looked in her rear view mirror. Seeing a car pulling out to pass her, she slowed further and waited for it to go by. Then she turned abruptly to the left and drove straight into the path of the oncoming truck. Plaintiff passenger, seriously injured in the collision, sued defendant, alleging gross negligence. The trial …

Police Discretion And Traffic Law Enforcement, Hayes Elder

Washington Law Review

But, society, in its desire to secure our future safety on the highways, must not be driven by these alarming statistics to sacrifice personal freedoms. Although the first concern with traffic safety laws is to increase the motorist's chance for survival, these traffic laws, and the enforcement of them, create other problems that can undermine values fundamental to our society. This comment will discuss some of these problems, and shall suggest a possible course for our legislative bodies that may best effect greater traffic safety, and at the same time preserve the other values. For the sake of comprehension and …

Traffic Victims—Tort Law And Insurance, By Leon Green (1958), Cornelius J. Peck

Washington Law Review

In a book which has already received much comment and surely will receive more, one of America's leading authorities on the law of torts has reviewed the historic development of principles for determining liability and explored the inadequacies of the existing legal system for distributing the enormous losses caused by modern traffic. The conclusion he reaches is that a system of compulsory liability insurance must be substituted for present-day negligence law. He then sets out the basic features of such a system.

Evidence Of Speed—Highway Radar, Sally Campbell

Washington Law Review

The problem of the highway speeder is almost as old as the automobile itself. With this problem came two others—one, the detection of the speeding motorist, and two, the use of the means of detection as evidence in convicting the offender. Through the years many devices have been invented to determine the speed of an automobile. Some of these have succeeded m the courtroom and are still used; others have been determined inadmissible in evidence. Some of the means most commonly used at the present time met with difficulty at first and in some instances are still not enough in …

The Duty Of The Favored Driver Under The Right Of Way Statute To Maintain A Reasonable And Proper Lookout, James F. Mcateer

Washington Law Review

Must the favored driver keep a lookout to the left? The court evaded the issue in the case of Massengale v. Svangren. In that case two cars were approaching an intersection at approximately the same time and at approximately the same speed, 30 miles per hour. Neither driver saw the other until it was too late to avoid the collision. The majority of the court preferred to place its finding on the ground that since the favored driver "had the right to assume" that the disfavored driver would observe him and yield the right of way, the favored driver's failure …

The Limited-Access Highway, Owen Clarke

Washington Law Review

Even more impressive has been the sharp reduction in motor vehicle accidents where the principle of limited-access has been employed. On the Arroyo Seco, for example, accidents dropped 75 per cent. Accidents on Chicago's Outer Drive totaled only eight for every ten million vehicle miles traveled compared with 189 on ordinary roads in the area. After limiting access on a five-eighths-mile section in Milwaukee, there were only 5 per cent as many accidents as the average of four other comparable unlimited-access sections. Experience throughout the United States indicates that with limited-access highways we will have less than 15 per cent …

Contributory Negligence Of The Disfavored Driver Under The Right Of Way Statute, John Huston

Washington Law Review

The automobile collision at intersections of two streets, neither of which is arterial, is perhaps one of the most common subjects of litigation. For the past twenty-three years such litigation has been governed in part by the statute entitled "Look out approaching intersection—Vehicles to right,"' which provides as follows: "It shall be the duty of every operator of any vehicle on approaching public highway intersections to look out for and give way to-vehicles on their [sic] right, simultaneously approaching a given point within the intersection, and whether such vehicle first reach and enter the intersection or not: Provided, This section …

Improving The Administration Of Justice In Traffic Courts, James W. Hodson

Washington Law Review

It is high time that the bar should give careful thought to that part of the traffic enforcement problem which is legal and judicial. It is time to examine the fundamental theory of traffic law, the reason for the existence of such a body of law, and to ask whether it is being administered in tribunals equipped with proper facilities and adequate knowledge. It is time to inquire what is the purpose of traffic law, and whether its administration is such as to help serve that purpose. Such inquiry will reveal some strange and disturbing facts.

The Motor Vehicle Registration Act As A Limitation On The Chattel Mortgage Recording Act, John M. Davis

Washington Law Review

Because motor vehicles are so easily moved from place to place, and because of the intricacies of successive security transactions in relation to them, it has become expedient to provide for a more adequate method of ascertaining the title to any given motor vehicle than the chattel mortgage recording act provides. In the absence of a title registration act giving the same force and effect to certificates of title for motor vehicles as that given to similar certificates under a Torrens system of land registration, in many instances a purchaser cannot be certain he is buying a clear title without …

A Review Of Common Carrier Motor Vehicle Regulation, Karl Stecker

Washington Law Review

Perhaps no other single factor has played so great a part in the revolution of the economic and social life of the nation during the past generation as the motor vehicle. With the growth of its importance in transportation has come the necessity for regulation. Broadly speaking, outside of the matter of general registration, the regulation, or necessity for regulation, falls within three periods corresponding with the improvement of the motor vehicle itself and with the development of the highways (1) the intracity or "jitney bus" period, (2) the intrastate period, and (3) the interstate period. The regulation of the …

Necesssity Of Notice To A Municipal Corporation To Render It Liabile For Defects In Its Streets, Phyllis Cavender

Washington Law Review

A municipal corporation is not an insurer of its streets; and is not obliged to so construct and maintain them as to secure absolute nnmunity from any danger in using them. Generally stated, its duty is to exercise ordinary care to keep them in a reasonably safe condition for public travel; this duty being in some states imposed by statute, and in others, arising by mere implication. The Washington rule is well illustrated by the case of Sutton v. Snohomish, in which the court said: "Where a city has exclusive control and management of its streets with power to raise …