States with medical marijuana laws have fewer traffic fatalities than those without, especially among younger drivers, says a new study.

Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found on average an 11 percent reduction in traffic fatalities when examining places that have enacted medical-marijuana laws–in total, 28 states and the District of Columbia.

There was also a strong correlation between the presence of medical marijuana dispensaries and fewer traffic fatalities, claimed the study, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The presence of medical marijuana laws seemed to have the biggest effect on the number of traffic fatalities for individuals between the ages of 15 and 44, with special emphasis on those aged 25 to 44 years.

Dr, Silvia Martins, a physician and associate professor who was a senior author of the study, told the Washington Post that the lower traffic fatality rates could be related to lower levels of alcohol-impaired driving as people–especially younger people–substitute weed for booze.

“We found evidence that states with the marijuana laws in place compared with those which did not, reported, on average, lower rates of drivers endorsing driving after having too many drinks,” Martins said in a written statement.

However, not every state experienced a substantial reduction in traffic fatalities. California and New Mexico, for example, both experienced gradual increases in traffic deaths after initial reductions of 16 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively.

“These findings provide evidence of the heterogeneity of medical marijuana laws and indicate the need for further research on the particularities of implementing the laws at the local level,” said Julian Santaella-Tenorio, a doctoral student in epidemiology at Columbia, and the study’s lead author. “It also indicates an interaction of medical marijuana laws with other aspects, such as stronger police enforcement, that may influence traffic fatality rates.”

While medical marijuana laws have seemingly influenced these rates, they may not be the sole factor driving the change.

According to Martins, other factors that might help explain the correlation could be the “strength of public health laws related to driving, infrastructure characteristics, or the quality of health care systems.”

Researchers used National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on traffic fatalities from 1985 to 2014 to conduct the study. Factors such as whether the states had graduated driver licensing laws, as well as median household income, unemployment rates, laws increasing the speed limit to 70 mph or more, laws on enforcing the use of seat belts, and bans on using cellphones and texting while driving were all taken into account.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Study: Medical Marijuana Laws Linked to Drops in Traffic Fatalities appeared first on Law Street.

How would you feel if someone took control of your car while you were driving it? Well that’s exactly what happened to Wired’s Andy Greenberg when he let two hackers remotely take control of his car while he was driving it. While the experiment was obviously done in good faith, the ordeal sheds some light on the remote capabilities of hackers to mess with vehicles as driving software continues to improve.

Hackers Chris Valasek of IOActive and Charlie Miller, a former NSA staffer, accessed Greenberg’s Jeep’s computer brain through its Uconnect infotainment system. There are issues in the Uconnect software system that powers the connected infotainment and other internet-powered systems in Fiat-Chrysler automobiles. Because of this, they were able to create an attack that could connect to the system and use a chip powering the in-vehicle entertainment to rewrite the firmware. From there, their exploit code sent commands across the car. They were able to do all this simply by using a MacBook connected to a cell phone.

To test their hacking skills, Greenberg drove the Jeep Cherokee down the expressway, gearing up to about 70 mph. Once the hackers were able to take control of the car, they began to test some of its features. This included playing with the car’s air conditioning, blasting loud music, and even killing the transmission and brakes. Despite being in on the “test,” Greenberg was freaked out when the vehicle began to drive itself even though he was still behind the wheel and on the expressway. He was able to gain control of the car again, only after he turned the car off and back on. Once he exited the expressway and tried to park the car in a parking lot, his brakes were hacked as he parked directly in front of a ditch, and was forced into it.

Even more notably, once the hackers were able to access Uconnect, they were also able to scan for other vulnerable vehicles. After repeated scans, they believe as many as 471,000 vehicles are carrying the same vulnerabilities that would allow them to get hacked. They have only actually tested their hacking skills on this Jeep Cherokee, but they believe any Chrysler vehicle with Uconnect manufactured in late 2013, all of 2014, or early 2015 is affected.

As crazy as this sounds, Miller and Valasek aren’t the first to hack a car over the internet. In 2011 a team of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California at San Diego showed that they could wirelessly disable the locks and brakes on a sedan. 

Regardless of how funny the act may have been in this context, Miller and Valasek’s demonstration should alert drivers to the potential danger they could be facing if their car was hacked while they were driving a vehicle.  The entire automotive industry has been repeatedly criticized for various systems’ lack of security over the last year. Former National Security Agent, Charlie Miller says,

If consumers don’t realize this is an issue, they should, and they should start complaining to carmakers. This might be the kind of software bug most likely to kill someone.

Other researchers have demonstrated attacks on vehicles from afar, while highlighting vulnerabilities in widely-used insurance dongles. At a recent Senate Commerce Committee hearing on The Internet of Things, senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) announced legislation that would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Trade Commission to establish federal standards to secure our cars and protect drivers’ privacy.

So what does this say about the types of vehicles we drive and their vulnerabilities that provide hackers access? Even though it was just a demonstration, Greenberg was clearly extremely uncomfortable not being in control of his car. In 2011, the team of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California San Diego took a more discreet approach in their research, keeping the identity of the hacked cars a secret and only sharing the details with the carmakers. Now, carmakers who failed to take heed of polite warnings in 2011 have been exposed for their vehicles’ security flaws. The result could be product recalls or even civil suits, says UCSD computer science professor Stefan Savage, who worked on the 2011 study. While it is fortunate all cars are not subject to these vulnerabilities, it is clear that car manufactures must finally address the potential dangers of car hacking.

Angel Idowu

Angel Idowu is a member of the Beloit College Class of 2016 and was a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Angel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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You know you live in a privileged society when you can book a suite and browse discounted doughnuts with the help of your personal in-car concierge.

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, General Motors plans to debut its new OnStar assistance feature AtYourService. In a recent press release GM described it as a “commerce and engagement offering that connects drivers with retailers and merchants on their drive providing information, convenience and money-saving values tied to their specific destinations.”

So, how exactly will it work?

Well, let’s say that Joe Shmoe requests directions using OnStar’s voice-operated system to Dunkin’ Donuts (one of GM’s current partners). An OnStar advisor will send him any special deals that DD is currently offering. Users can also use the 4G LTE Wi-Fi capabilities to browse other nearby offers from participating merchants. Many states plus Washington D.C. currently have laws prohibiting handheld cellphones. So to keep customers safely browsing, GM’s new feature aims to eradicate the consumers’ need to fiddle with their phones while driving, creating an overall safer driving experience.

But is it really essential for drivers to search for coupons en route anyways? I wouldn’t say trolling the internet at a stoplight for a 20 percent off coupon is high on most people’s priority lists.

Nevertheless, GM has already secured partnerships with coupon collecting giants like RetailMetNot and Entertainment Book, as well as e-book content from Audiobooks.com, and parking data from Parkopedia.

Besides finding coupons and reading books to drivers, AtYourService can also help drivers locate hotels and book reservations using Priceline.com. Subscribers simply give the general location of where they’d like to stay to the advisors, who then select from Priceline’s participating hotels in the area and book a room. After it’s booked the driver receives an email confirmation of their reservation.

If you’re someone who needs validation in your belief that everyone else on the road is an idiot, no worries. This summer, OnStar will also begin giving driving-based feedback and insurance discounts via its Snapshot program from Progressive Insurance. Drivers will be able to enroll in a 90-day evaluation program where motorists’ driving data will be collected, evaluated, and compared to other anonymous enrolled customers. Users will then receive assessment-based driving tips provided by OnStar.

We’re not entirely sure what OnStar and Progressive will do with all of the collected data, either saving or selling it, but the combination of these features with this new in-car shopping experience is on trend with mobile automotive features. In the end, with the advent of several automotive companies working on developing driverless cars—like BMW’s ultra-futuristic “exclusive cocoon” concept car which operates more as a mobile living space–as well as connected collision avoidance systems in the near future, AtYourService may be the very time-wasting feature you’ll need to distract yourself from the lack of actual driving.

The creation of this new feature makes sense as a profitable win-win for General Motors and its partners’ advertisers to further monetize the driving experience, but is this handsfree feature actually a distraction? It’s not yet clear if the ads it features will be some sort of auditory nuisance for drivers, or subtle helpful reminders–that will have to be determined once AtYourService actually makes it to the road.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post GM’s AtYourService Tool Makes Multitasking While Driving Easy appeared first on Law Street.

For the average American public high school student, school starts around 8:00am. When you factor in the fact that bus and/or driving transportation is required, the day can start much earlier for most students. Many people have argued that school should start later for growing adolescents. Read on to learn about the laws surrounding our educational start times, the debate about changing the times, and what factors are taken into account when planning a school’s first bell.

Why does school start so early?

There’s not actually a very good answer to this question. It’s partly tradition — school has always started early, possibly as a way to “train” students for the real world. There’s also the desire to make time for extracurriculars. A packed resume becomes more desirable for college applicants, so schools want to leave plenty of time in the afternoon for students to engage in sports, clubs, part-time jobs, and other activities. With regard to sports and other outdoor activities, schools want to leave enough time for students to be able to be outside before it gets too dark. There’s also the transportation argument — often school districts stagger when local levels of schools start so they don’t need to send out buses for elementary, middle, and high school students at the same time.

What would be the benefits to changing the start times?

Less Tardiness, More Participation 

It is no secret that during their first period of the day, high school students are often still mentally asleep, which creates problems involving both class participation and school tardiness. The University of Minnesota conducted a study when the Minneapolis Public School System changed the starting time of seven high schools from 7:15am to 8:40am. The study found that students benefited academically from gaining additional hours of sleep each week. Advocates of later morning bells argue that this shift would enable students and teachers to make more of the school day.

Preventing Accidents

Additionally, many high school juniors and seniors who drive to high school in the morning are often “driving drowsy” and the decreased alertness caused by driving this early in the morning is often a factor in many adolescent automobile accidents. “Driving drowsy” is incredibly dangerous:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. These figures may be the tip of the iceberg, since currently it is difficult to attribute crashes to sleepiness.

Additionally, according to the National Sleep Foundation, adults between 18-29 are more likely to get into accidents from driving drowsy. While there doesn’t appear to be statistics available for 16 and 17-year-old drivers, it’s safe to assume they’d be consistent with or worse than that of their slightly older counterparts. Allowing students to get more adequate nights of sleep would help prevent potentially dangerous accidents.

Helping Teenagers to Grow

One of the most convincing arguments for why we might want to change the start times at the high school level is that they don’t work with the specific circadian rhythms of teenagers. According to doctors, when adolescents hit puberty, their bodies release melatonin later into the night than adults. This makes it very difficult for them to fall asleep, even if they go to bed early, and therefore harder to wake up first thing in the morning. In addition, teenagers need more sleep than adults, given that they are usually still growing. It’s estimated that a teenager needs about nine-and-a-half hours of sleep on any given night.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recently started advocating for a school day that starts at 8:30am or later. The doctors explain that sleep deprivation can have very negative ramifications on students’ health. It’s unsurprisingly much harder to concentrate on school work and tests when you’re running on less sleep than your body needs to operate. But there are also lesser known consequences: lack of sleep among teenagers hasbeen linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and obesity.

What are the arguments against changing school start times?

Opponents acknowledge that current school schedules are out of sync with teenagers’ natural sleep cycles; however, many parents and administrators argue that these changes would bring about a number of problems, and therefore would not be worth the questionable academic benefits to their students.

As more students each year apply to colleges, extracurricular activities and sports have become vital in rounding out a student’s resume; however, if school starts and ends later, students will have less time for these extracurricular activities. Additionally, many students either have to watch younger siblings after school while their parents work or have after-school jobs themselves, both of which would become problematic if these students were to get out of school later. Busing would become a major problem, as well. Administrators have stated that it would be impossible to bus high school, middle school, and elementary students all at the same time, and they are unwilling to have elementary school children walking to school or waiting for the bus at 6:45 in the morning.

High school students driving to school later would often end up getting caught right in the middle of morning rush hour traffic, negating the decrease in the risk of accidents due to drowsy driving. Lastly, there are many who feel that if school were to start later, students would simply use that as an excuse to go to bed late. Oponents instead argue that it is the parent’s jobs to strictly enforce curfews to ensure that their children get adequate sleep in preparation of their early schedules, and that students need to learn to get up early before entering the real world.

What else can be done to help students get more sleep?

While it seems like schools are starting to consider later start times, and more and more doctors are advocating for these changes, we probably won’t be seeing changes anytime soon. There are a lot of logistical, financial, and policy issues that need to be untangled before schools shift start times dramatically. In the mean time, doctors recommend that students attempt to get the appropriate amount of sleep whenever possible, and that their parents help as much as they can.

One big recommendation deals with the increasingly common use of electronics before bed time. As Children’s Hospital pediatrician Mary Palmer points out:

As society has moved along, now we have things that keep us awake after the sun goes down. You have to have a time to process and decompress and if you’re still multitasking, which most of our electronics have us doing. I mean, we’re going from email to Twitter and there’s just so many inputs, so you have to have less distractors.

While adolescents’ Circadian rhythms may be different than those of adults, it’s still important to listen to advice like Palmer’s. Steps can be taken that make it easier for students to fall asleep at times that will give them the appropriate amount of shut-eye before school starts in the morning. While many schools are still working their way through instituting later start times for high school students, this advice is especially valuable.

Resources

Primary 

U.S. House of Representatives:  H. Con. Res. 176 ZZZ’s to A’s Resolution

Fairfax County School Board: Goal to Start High Schools After 8:00AM

Additional

KUOW.org: Sleep-Deprived Teenagers? Starting School Later Could Help Them Catch Up

Today: Teen Sleep Zombies: Should High Schools Have Later Start Times?

Smithsonian: School Really Should Start Later

National Sleep Foundation: School Start Time and Sleep

Start School Later: What’s the Big Deal?

Bethesda Magazine: Not Everyone Thinks MCPS High Schools Should Start Later

The New York Times: Are You Up Yet?

WFSU: Proposal to Push Back High School Start Times Raised School Districts’ Ire

Washington Post: Spend Millions to Let Teens Sleep Later?

mLive: Why Do High School Kids Go to School So Early? Because That’s the Way it’s Always Been

Week: Should High School Start Later?

ABC WFTS: More Debate On if High School Students Should Start Classes Later

Huffington Post: Should a School Change Start Time For Sleep? Later School Times Improve Student Performance: Study

Associated Press: Starting High School Later May Help Sleepy Teens

CBS: Stop Starting School So Early Doctors Say

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post School Start Times: Do More ZZZs Equal More A’s? appeared first on Law Street.

Recently, there have been a lot cases that deal with liability. Whether, it’s Uber X drivers, Lyft, or even MH370, there is a common trend following the advancement of technological convenience, that the lines of liability become blurred. The next foreseen liability issue will be automated cars. The invention of the automated car provides convenience and could potentially increase safety on the roads. Google, large automakers, and governments around the world are investing large amounts of money to jump start vehicle automation technology. This all sounds great until we consider one minor detail: whose liable if no one is driving?

Driver Automation: What’s the issue?

It becomes confusing to fairly separate blame between a person driver and an automated vehicle. Looking at the possibility of a driverless vehicle being to blame, there are multiple aspects to consider, such as how the vehicle was made or tested. Many experts believe that it will be liabilities such as these that will slow down or even halt the shift of driverless cars from the research grounds to the roadways.

Do we just assume that this invention of driverless cars is out of reach because the court system will not be able to handle the liabilities that come with it? Rather than attempting to imagine every possible dangerous situation that may occur involving driverless cars, the courts can use a legal frameworks that are already in place. That is the rapidly growing area of law, product liability.

Following rapid technological change that has occurred in the last couple of years, products liability has become a growing area of law. It centers itself around the responsibilities of selling and creating  newer products. Plaintiffs involved in product liability lawsuits will have multiple theories of liability to choose from in their attempt to recover damages, such as negligence, design defects and manufacturing defects. This already established product liability system can be applied to the recent invention of the automated vehicles.

Negligence

Manufacturers can be charged with negligence if they do not design their products to be safely used in ways that can be predicted. An example of this would be an automated vehicle that works correctly during the day but has issues at night. When this results in a crash or car damage, a plaintiff can argue that driving at night is a foreseeable activity for a driverless car. The fact that a manufacturer did not correctly account for this is negligence.

Design Defects

A design defect is another possible liability avenue for driverless cars, that the court will be able to legally handle. A design defect would be labeled as something such as when the software can not sufficiently brake on a downhill slope. This can cause a frontal collision with another car, allowing the plaintiff to file a design defect liability claim.

Manufacturing Defects

There are times when the design can be sufficient, but the manufacturer can still have a liability issue due to manufacturing defects. This occurs when a manufacturer accidentally ships an older version of software containing flaws that a newer version has improved upon. Any injuries caused by a mistake such as this one can lead to a lawsuit revolving around manufacturing defects.

Prior to jumping to conclusions and believing that liabilities will put an end to automated vehicles before they hit the highway, let us look at the facts. The court system will not find it impossible to deal with the liability issues of driverless cars, but can instead use the products liability legal structure. In reality, automated vehicles are not really in a league of their own, but held to the same expectation of offering products that function correctly and safety as other manufacturers.

[The Atlantic] [CNN] [The Washington Post]

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Taylor Garre (TaylorLynn013)

Featured Image Courtesy of [Steve Jurveston, Mariordo via Wikicommons]

Taylor Garre

Taylor Garre is a student at Fordham University and formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Taylor at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Will Driverless Cars Prove to be Too Much of a Liability? appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome back to “Life of a Legal Post Grad,” a column which will quite soon be serving its initial purpose: describing the life of a young legal professional navigating his way through this crazy world of the law.

By “quite soon” I mean in a couple of days. I’ve been at my job for two weeks now and I already have (awesome) stories. Stay tuned. This week, though, let’s talk about this crazy-fast transition that I’m going through in my life. Mmmmmk?

To recap: 2013 was dark. Like…Disney dark. (P.S., if you don’t get the dark undertones in most Disney movies, you should set aside a few hours this weekend and rewatch your childhood favorites, because…whoa). The lone highlight of 2013 was seeing Rihanna in concert. I kept saying, “2014 has to be better.”

Well, here we are, and 2014 is covered in light, roses, bunnies, and all other things good and cute.  I may be the happiest that I’ve ever been in my adult life. Why, you ask? Because of all the ch-ch-ch-changes!

First of all, I have a legal job that I love.  It’s only been a week and a half, but everything is coming up roses so far. I work for a really cool company, I do dynamic legal work, and I work with awesome and intelligent people. Every day I’m challenged and pushed to be better, which is what I had in mind when I first entered law school. This job actually makes me want to be a lawyer, which is new and unexpected. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT!

Second, the weather: let’s talk about wearing shorts and flip-flops in January. Or we can discuss reviewing contracts poolside. Entertain the notion of shifting the liability to a third party on the beach, even. All of these are now my options! Two weeks ago I lived in D.C.; the same D.C. that was shut down for two days last week because of the resurgence of the polar vortex (speaking of, that weather pattern really sucks).

The “downside” to life (just kidding! there is none!) is driving everywhere. I’m a walker. I’ve previously lived in Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York: all of these are major cities with wide-ranging public transportation systems and a walkable urban plan that renders ownership of a car unnecessary and burdensome. Friends, Florida is not like that; a car is a necessary part of life. Now I’m a commuter! Every morning I wake up, start my car, drive to Starbucks, and sit in highway traffic on my way to work (if you care, I take 95 to 195). This may seem normal to some, but I have literally never had to be so alert before 9:00 a.m. In fact, for the first few days of commuting, I drove in absolute silence with my hands resolutely placed at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions. Every five minutes I’d say out loud: “Don’t kill yourself or anyone else.” Luckily I’m more comfortable now, and it’s become less of a burden. Sometimes I even get a bit of road rage, and then I’m all:

All in all, I’m having an amazing time. I have a newfound admiration for the law — so much so that I plan on taking the Florida Bar exam this summer. I never thought I would voluntarily sit for the bar exam, but I figure if I want to make a life and career here, it’s the next logical step. More importantly, it’s what my instincts are telling me to do, and I’m still inclined to follow them. It’s worked out so far!

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Peter Davidson is a recent graduate of law school who rants about news & politics and raves over the ups & downs of FUNemployment in the current legal economy. Tweet him @PeterDavidsonII.

Featured image courtesy of [Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose via Flickr]

Featured .gifs courtesy of [RealityTVgifs]

Peter Davidson II

Peter Davidson is a recent law school graduate who rants about news & politics and raves over the ups & downs of FUNemployment in the current legal economy. Contact Peter at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Times They Are a-Changin’ appeared first on Law Street.