Driving | featured news

A sharp decline in the price of oil this month is making gasoline cheaper at a time of year when it typically gets more expensive. It's a relief to motorists and business owners and a positive development for the economy. Over the past three weeks, the price of oil has fallen by 9 percent to $89 a barrel.

The fact that alcohol dissipates from the bloodstream over time does not by itself allow the police to take blood over objections, the Supreme Court ruled.

We’ve been hearing a lot about the “epidemic” of distracted driving, as U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has dubbed it, and most fingers point to such high-tech diversions as texting and handheld cellphoning.

Drivers approaching the majestic Golden Gate Bridge experienced something new on Wednesday - no human toll collectors. The workers were removed in favor of cheaper and faster electronic transponders, and a camera system that photographs every license plate that comes through, mailing an invoice to each motorist who doesn't prepay.

Google Glass, the tech giant's Internet-connected headset, isn't on the market yet. But that hasn't stopped one lawmaker from trying to keep the eyewear off the highways in his state.

Cars will soon be so linked into wireless networks they will be like giant rolling smartphones — with calling systems, streaming video, cameras and apps capable of harnessing the unprecedented trove of data vehicles will produce about themselves and the humans who drive them.

...There’s little doubt that motorists want more connectivity, despite the worrisome traffic statistics. But many experts are betting that so-called connected car technologies can be put to work reducing the number of accidents, injuries and deaths on America’s roadways.

When it comes to traffic congestion around Washington, even the good news is bad, and it goes downhill from there. The city that so hungers to be No. 1 at something — usually on a gridiron or diamond-shaped field — has again risen to the top as the most congested metropolitan area in the United States, a place where the average driver burns 67 hours and 32 gallons of gas each year sitting in traffic.

Defending motorcyclists who navigate the space between cars hits a nerve among motorists eager for a reasoned conversation on improving life on L.A.'s freeways... During his nearly 40 years as a columnist for this newspaper, my late father occasionally tweaked his readers — quite disingenuously — by belittling his cat, knowing the slur would stir invective so passionate and erudite that he could fill another column without having to do much writing of his own.

A survey finds mothers indulge in risky driving behavior with their babies in the car.