A January 29 collision between a helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Reagan Washington National Airport killed 67 people and prompted the FAA to launch a review of helicopter operations near major airports.

The FAA said it was addressing several issues at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas involving helicopters, including that tower controllers have not issued traffic advisories between returning air tour helicopters and airplanes, resulting in a routine lack of compliance with separation rules.

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(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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The Airbus A330 was set to depart for Atlanta when the engine caught fire around 11:15 a.m. local time. The FAA will investigate. A number of recent aviation safety incidents in the United States have raised concerns.

Delta said Flight 1213 had 282 passengers and 12 crew members and there were no initial reports of injuries. Delta flight crews “followed procedures to evacuate the passenger cabin when flames in the tailpipe of one of the aircraft’s two engines were observed.”

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(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington/Editing by Franklin Paul and Matthew Lewis)

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Tesla has promised affordable vehicles beginning in the first half of the year, offering a potential boost to flagging sales. Global production of the lower-cost Model Y, internally codenamed E41, is expected to begin in the United States, the sources said, but it would be at least months later than Tesla’s public plan, they added, offering a range of revised targets from the third quarter to early next year.

Two of the people said Tesla aimed to produce 250,000 of the cheaper Model Ys in the United States in 2026. The new vehicle is also planned for eventual production in China and Europe, Reuters has previously reported. The delay of U.S. production and the U.S. production target have not been previously reported.

Tesla’s Plans for New Vehicles in Question

Tesla reports results on Tuesday, and plans for the new vehicles are a major question.

The less expensive mass-market vehicles have been widely anticipated by Tesla fans and investors who hope they will attract a fresh group of customers and reverse the EV maker’s falling sales and eroding market share. Tesla also has refreshed its original Model Y with exterior and interior changes. The Long Range All-Wheel Drive version in the United States costs about $49,000, before a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Reuters reported last month that the China launch of the E41 will occur in 2026. The E41 will be smaller and cost 20% less to produce than the refreshed Model Y, the sources familiar with China plans told Reuters. The timing of the rollout in Europe is not clear.

Tesla is also planning to launch a bare-bones version of its Model 3 compact sedan, three people said.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the delay of production of the cheaper Model Y, production targets and other details reported here.

The EV maker on Jan. 2 reported its first decline in annual deliveries  last year, and analysts expect sales to fall again this year for several reasons, including damage to the brand reputation by Chief Executive Elon Musk’s close work with U.S. President Donald Trump and support of far-right European politicians.

Tesla’s Vehicles Are Aging

Another challenge for Tesla is that its vehicles are aging and there is no relatively cheap model.

Musk earlier promised a new, cheaper EV platform with cars expected to be priced as low as $25,000, but dropped that to prioritize robotaxi development.

Automakers are grappling with prospects of rising prices and supply-chain disruption, after Trump imposed 25% tariffs on vehicles and auto parts imported from outside the United States.

Tesla has increased North American sourcing for parts of many models over the last two years, which would decrease tariff exposure for the E41, two people aware of the matter said. It recently suspended plans to ship components from China to the United States for the Cybercab and Semi truck due to tariffs, one person told Reuters earlier this week.

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(Reporting by Abhirup Roy in San Francisco, Aditi Shah in New Delhi, Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul, and Zoey Zhang and Zhuzhu Cui in Shanghai; Editing by Peter Henderson and Matthew Lewis)

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The automaker will recall 123,611 vehicles due to a fluid leak that could reduce braking performance and increase stopping distance. This affects certain 2017–18 Ford F-150, Expedition, and Lincoln Navigator models.

Dealers are expected to replace the affected parts like the master cylinder or the brake booster, free of charge, the U.S. auto safety regulator said.

Separately, Ford is calling back 24,655 of its 2025 Explorer vehicles as a powertrain control module (PCM) may reset while driving, which can damage the vehicle’s park system or cause an engine stall, according to the regulator.

Dealers are expected to fix the software issue free of charge, with owners receiving notification letters by May 26.

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(Reporting by Abhinav Parmar in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Mrigank Dhaniwala)

The post Ford Recalls More Than 148,000 Vehicles, NHTSA Says appeared first on GV Wire.

Ryan Wong and Kamrie Wong also accused other flight attendants of being unapologetic for the September 19, 2024, incident and failing to get proper medical help.

Their son, known as K.W. in court papers, is now afraid to fly, they added.

Southwest did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Wongs said they were flying home to Salt Lake City from Orlando, Florida, when a flight attendant carrying a drink tray on one arm extended hot coffee over their son and spilled it.

Boy Shrieked ‘It’s so Hot!’

According to the complaint, the boy shrieked in pain from his burn injuries, screaming “It’s so hot!”

The Wongs said paramedics met them at a layover in Chicago, but that a Southwest gate agent caused more pain by forcibly seating their son on his buttocks. They also said flight attendants on their return to Salt Lake City offered no help.

As a result of the incident, the boy feels shame and embarrassment including at school, has permanent scarring, and has trouble sitting for extended periods, the complaint said.

The lawsuit in Chicago federal court seeks unspecified damages for negligence.

“Airlines need to do better,” the Wongs’ lawyer, Mark Lindquist, said in an email.

Other airlines have also faced lawsuits over spilled coffee.

Last September, for example, a Washington state woman also represented by Lindquist sued Delta Air Lines over alleged injuries when coffee spilled off a slanted tray table and onto her lap. That case remains pending.

The case is Wong et al v Southwest Airlines Co, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 25-04116.

—

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

The post Southwest Airlines Sued Over Spilled Coffee on 4-Year-Old Boy: ‘It’s so Hot!’ appeared first on GV Wire.

The company’s quarterly sales globally fell 13% to the lowest in nearly three years, hurt by a backlash against CEO Musk, rising competition and as customers wait for a refresh of its highest-selling electric vehicle Model Y.

“An aging product lineup and backlash against Musk’s political initiatives are likely key factors for the decline in Tesla BEV market share,” the California New Car Dealers Association said.

Tesla’s share of the electric vehicle market fell to 43.9% from 55.5% a year earlier, according to the industry body.

—

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

The post Tesla’s First-Quarter Registrations in California Fell 15%, Industry Data Shows appeared first on GV Wire.

This year’s paving season will deliver 50 miles of improved roadways through a combination of neighborhood paving, major street overlays, capital infrastructure projects, and preventative slurry seal work.

Here are some of the highlights of the $32 million in expenditures:

— 26 paving projects totaling more than $18 million and covering 25 miles

— Five major capital repaving and street improvement projects totaling more than 3 miles and $12 million

— Slurry seal work on 21 miles of roadway at a cost of $1.5 million

The projects stretch across every council district while including neighborhood streets and high traffic corridors. Funding comes from Fresno County’s Measure C transportation sales tax, the state gas tax, and federal ARPA grants.

Two-Fold Strategy Behind Fixing McKinley

“Our roads are aging, and we are improving them one street at a time,” Mayor Jerry Dyer said in a news release. “This is about making life better for the people of Fresno. Whether it’s a neighborhood street or major corridor, every part of our city deserves to be taken care of — and that’s exactly what we’re doing to build a better Fresno.”

Councilmember Nelson Esparza pointed to the importance of McKinley Avenue and the need to keep it in top-notch condition for residents and visitors.

“McKinley Avenue is a vital corridor that connects residents and visitors across Fresno — from our airport and Fresno City College to small businesses and neighborhoods,” Esparza said. “This project is more than just a repaving effort; it’s a strategic reinvestment in a route that thousands of families, workers, and visitors rely on daily.”

See If Your Street Is on the List

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Court research by Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson

Ivan Dimov was convicted of reckless driving in 2013, after fleeing police in Washington state while his passenger allegedly dumped heroin out the window. Before that, he got six DUIs in California over a six-year period. None of that would keep him off the road.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles reissued him a driver’s license in 2017. The next year, on Christmas Eve, he drove drunk again, running stop signs and a traffic light in midtown Sacramento, going more than 80 mph, court records show. He T-boned another car, killing a 28-year-old man who was going home to feed the cat before heading to his mom’s for the holiday.

Kostas Linardos had 17 tickets — including for speeding, reckless driving and street racing — and had been in four collisions. Then, in November 2022, he gunned his Ram 2500 truck as he entered a Placer County highway and slammed into the back of a disabled sedan, killing a toddler, court records show. He’s now facing felony manslaughter charges.

In December of last year, while that case was open, the DMV renewed his driver’s license.

Ervin Wyatt’s history behind the wheel spreads across two pages of a recent court filing: Fleeing police. Fleeing police again. Running a red light. Causing a traffic collision. Driving without a license, four times. A dozen speeding tickets.

Yet the DMV issued him a license in 2019. Wyatt promptly got three more speeding tickets, court records show. Prosecutors say he was speeding again in 2023 when he lost control and crashed into oncoming traffic, killing three women. He’s now facing murder charges in Stanislaus County.

DMV Routinely Allows Dangerous Drivers on the Road

The California Department of Motor Vehicles routinely allows drivers like these — with horrifying histories of dangerous driving, including DUIs, crashes and numerous tickets — to continue to operate on our roadways, a CalMatters investigation has found. Too often they go on to kill. Many keep driving even after they kill. Some go on to kill again.

With state lawmakers grappling with how to address the death toll on our roads, CalMatters wanted to understand how California handles dangerous drivers. We first asked the district attorneys for all 58 counties to provide us with a list of their vehicular manslaughter cases from 2019 through early last year. Every county but Santa Cruz provided the information.

Because California has no centralized court system and records aren’t online, we then traveled to courthouses up and down the state to read through tens of thousands of pages of files. Once we had defendants’ names and other information, we were able to get DMV driver reports for more than 2,600 of the defendants, providing details on their recent collisions, citations and license status.

The court records and driving histories reveal a state so concerned with people having access to motor vehicles for work and life that it allows deadly drivers to share our roads despite the cost. Officials may call driving a privilege, but they treat it as a right — often failing to take drivers’ licenses even after they kill someone on the road.

We found nearly 40% of the drivers charged with vehicular manslaughter since 2019 have a valid license.

That includes a driver with two separate convictions for vehicular manslaughter, for crashes that killed a 16-year-old girl in 2009 and a 25-year-old woman in 2020. In July of last year, the DMV issued him a driver’s license.

The agency gave licenses to nearly 150 people less than a year after they allegedly killed someone on the road, we found. And while the agency has since suspended some of those, often after a conviction, the majority remain valid. In Santa Clara County, a man prosecutors charged with manslaughter got his current license just a month and a half after the collision that killed a mother of three young children.

And many drivers accused of causing roadway deaths don’t appear to have stopped driving recklessly. Records show that nearly 400 got a ticket or were in another crash — or both — after their deadly collisions.

A commercial driver drove his semi truck on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, killing a motorcyclist in Kern County in 2021. Less than a year later, he still had a valid license when he barreled his semi into slow-moving traffic, hitting four vehicles and killing a woman in Fresno County, records show. Another man, sentenced to nine years in prison for killing two women while driving drunk, got his privileges restored by the DMV after being paroled, only to drive high on meth in Riverside and weave head-on into another car, killing a woman.

“It is somewhat shocking to see how much you can get away with and still be a licensed driver in the state of California,” Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire said. “I don’t think anyone fully understands what you need to do behind the wheel to lose your driving privilege.”

Almost as interesting as the information in the drivers’ DMV records is what’s not there.

Hundreds of drivers’ DMV records simply don’t list convictions for manslaughter or another crime related to a fatal crash, we found. The apparent error means some drivers who should have their driving privileges suspended instead show up in DMV records as having a valid license.

The cases we reviewed cut across demographics and geography. Defendants include farmworkers and a farm owner. They include off-duty police officers and people with lengthy rap sheets, drivers who killed in a fit of rage and others whose recklessness took the lives of those they loved most — high school sweethearts, siblings, children. The tragedies span this vast state. From twisty two-lane mountain roads near the Oregon border to the dusty scrubland touching Mexico. From the crowded streets of San Francisco to the highways of the Inland Empire. From Gold Country, to timber country, to Silicon Valley, to the almond capital of the world. So much death. More people than are killed by guns.

Dangerous drivers are able to stay on the roads for many reasons. The state system that targets motorists who rack up tickets is designed to catch clusters of reckless behavior, not long-term patterns. And while there are laws requiring the DMV to suspend a driver’s license for certain crimes, like DUIs, there is no such requirement for many vehicular manslaughter convictions.

DMV Director Doesn’t Talk to CalMatters

It’s often up to the DMV whether to act. Routinely it doesn’t.

The DMV declined to make its director, Steve Gordon — who has been in charge since Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him in 2019 — available for an interview to discuss our findings.

Chris Orrock, a DMV spokesperson, said the agency follows the law when issuing licenses. “We use our authority as mandated and as necessary,” he said.

Even when the DMV does take away motorists’ driving privileges, state officials, law enforcement and the courts are often unable or unwilling to keep them off the road. We found cases where drivers racked up numerous tickets while driving on a suspended license and faced little more than fines before eventually causing a fatal crash, even though authorities could have sent them to jail.

Taking away someone’s driving privilege is no small decision. It can consign a family to poverty, affecting job prospects, child care and medical decisions.

Still, the stakes couldn’t be higher. More than 20,000 people died on the roads of California from 2019 to early 2024.

Kowana Strong thinks part of the problem is that lawmakers and regulators are too quick to treat fatal crashes as an unfortunate fact of life, as opposed to something they can address.

Her son Melvin Strong III — who went by his middle name, Kwaun — was finishing college and planning to start a master’s program in kinesiology when he was killed by Dimov, the driver with six prior DUI convictions. Kwaun was a bright and innocent young man, she said, just starting his life.

“It’s just another accident as far as they’re concerned,” Kowana Strong said.

Holes in the DMV’s Point System

Young people think they’re invincible. It’s the old who know how unfair life is, Jerrod Tejeda said.

His daughter Cassi Tejeda was just 22. She was months from graduating from Chico State with a bachelor’s degree in history and a plan to be a teacher. Outgoing and athletic, she wanted to travel, see the world and make her own life.

She had a girlfriend who was visiting. Courtney Kendall was 24 and a student at Louisiana State University.

On a Sunday afternoon in January 2022, a Volvo SUV topping speeds of 75 mph ran a red light and smashed into their Jeep, court records show. The collision killed them both.

“The most difficult part besides the incident is every day that goes by you’re always wondering what if. What would they be doing today?” Jerrod Tejeda said. “Would they be married? Would they have developed into the career that they chose? Where would she be living?”

Tanya Kendall lamented not being there to protect her daughter, hold her hand or say goodbye.

“Instead, I was left with the unbearable task of choosing what outfit she would be buried in. Buried, Your Honor. Not the gown she would wear to her graduation from LSU — the one she will never attend,” the mother wrote in a letter to a Butte County judge, adding that she and her husband stood in their daughter’s place, accepting her diploma.

Such pain was preventable.

The driver of the Volvo, Matthew Moen, had a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit, according to court filings. And it wasn’t his first time drinking and driving. Moen was caught driving drunk in Oregon in 2016. He never completed the requirements of a diversion program and had an outstanding warrant at the time of the fatal crash, the Butte County district attorney’s office said. In January 2020, he was convicted of DUI in Nevada County for driving with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, given a couple weeks in jail and put on probation for three years.

His license was valid at the time of the fatal 2022 crash, records show.

Across the country, states grapple with how to effectively spot and punish drivers who could be a danger on the road. Often they rely on a basic point system, with drivers accruing points for various types of traffic violations and thresholds for when the state will take away a motorist’s driving privileges. But like many, California has such high limits that drivers with a pattern of reckless behavior can avoid punishment.

The state suspends a driver’s license for accumulating four points in a year, six points in two years or eight points in three years. What does it take to get that many points? Using a cellphone while driving is zero points. A speeding ticket is a point. Vehicular manslaughter is two points.

Between March 2017 and March 2022, Trevor Cook received two citations for running red lights, got two speeding tickets and was deemed responsible for two collisions, including one in which someone was injured, court records show. (A third red-light ticket was dismissed.) At-fault collisions add a point to a driver’s license, according to the DMV. But the incidents were spaced out enough that none resulted in a suspension.

So Cook had a valid license on April 14, 2022, just a month after his last speeding ticket, when he blew through a Yolo County stop sign at more than 100 mph.

At that exact moment, Prajal Bista passed through the intersection, on his way to work after dinner and a movie with his wife, according to details of the crash that prosecutors included in court filings. Bista was driving the speed limit and on track to make it to work 30 minutes early.

The force of the collision nearly split Bista’s Honda Civic in half. Investigators determined Bista had been wearing his seat belt, but the crash tore it apart. They found his body 75 feet from the intersection.

On March 28, 2024, Cook pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter.

Just a month later, on April 30, the DMV issued Cook his current driver’s license, agency records show. Less than two weeks after that, he got a ticket for disobeying a traffic signal.

Melinda Aiello, chief deputy district attorney in Yolo County, said her office didn’t know anything about the new license or the red-light ticket until contacted by CalMatters. What’s more, the manslaughter conviction — like hundreds of others we found — isn’t listed on Cook’s driving record.

Cook’s license was still listed as valid in California DMV records as of early 2025. But for now, he’s off the roadways: Last summer, Cook started serving time in state prison.

“It’s stunning to me that eight months later his license is still showing as valid and the conviction for killing someone while driving is not reflected in his driving record,” Aiello said. “You killed somebody. I’d think there might be some license implications.”

Orrock, the DMV spokesperson, said he couldn’t speak directly to why so many convictions are missing. But, he said, “we acknowledge that the process and coordination between the judicial system and the DMV must continually evolve to address any gaps that have been identified. And we’re looking into that.”

Kill Someone, Get Your license Back

There are laws requiring the DMV to suspend a driver’s license for various convictions. A first DUI conviction, for example, is a 6-to-10-month suspension. Felony vehicular manslaughter is a three-year loss of driving privileges. The agency isn’t necessarily required to give a license back if its driver safety branch deems a motorist too dangerous to drive, agency officials said.

But CalMatters found the agency regularly gives drivers their licenses back as soon as the legally required period ends. And once crashes, tickets and suspensions fall off a driver’s record after a few years, it’s often as if the motorist’s record is wiped clean. So even if the driver gets in trouble again, the agency often treats any future crashes and traffic violations as isolated incidents, not as part of a longer pattern of reckless driving.

Perhaps that’s why Joshua Daugherty is licensed to drive in California.

In July 2020, Daugherty drifted onto the highway shoulder while driving near Mammoth Lakes, overcorrected to the left and lost control, court filings show. His Toyota Tacoma cut across the lane into oncoming traffic, where an SUV broadsided it. Daugherty’s girlfriend, 25-year-old Krystal Kazmark, died. Police noted that Daugherty’s eyes were red and watery and his speech was slurred when they arrived. He told officers that he’d smoked “a couple of bowls” of marijuana earlier in the day, according to records filed in court.

Kazmark’s mother was devastated. Like other victim relatives we spoke to for this story, Mary Kazmark tried as best she could to summarize a life into a few words — an impossible task. Her daughter liked to sing, travel, cook, draw, snow-ski, water-ski, wakeboard, hike, read, entertain friends and plan parties. She was a responsible kid, her mother said, always the designated driver with her friends. She oversaw guest reservations at one of the Mammoth Lakes lodges.

Mary Kazmark said she tracked down Daugherty on the phone a few days after the crash.

“He just said, ‘I can’t believe this happened again.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’”

She eventually learned it wasn’t the first time Daugherty’s driving had killed.

In August 2009, in a strikingly similar incident, Daugherty was speeding along a Riverside County highway when his Ford Expedition drifted onto the shoulder. Witnesses told police he veered back to the left, lost control, hit a dirt embankment and went airborne, the SUV flipping onto its roof. A 16-year-old girl riding in the back died. Daugherty was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. He was sentenced to 180 days in custody and three years’ probation, according to a summary of the case filed in court.

Because of the earlier manslaughter conviction, police recommended he be charged with murder for the death of Krystal Kazmark. But the Mono County district attorney’s office charged him with a mere misdemeanor.

Felony charges typically require a prosecutor to prove “gross negligence.” A prosecutor in another county described the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor this way: A felony is one in which you tell the average person the facts and they say, “Wow, that’s really dangerous.” A misdemeanor is one which they say, “That’s dumb but I’ve probably done it.”

The Mono County district attorney’s office refused to comment on the case, because the prosecutor and the elected DA at the time have both since retired. The office did provide a prepared statement explaining the charging decision. “It was determined that there was not a substantial likelihood of conviction at trial,” it said.

Daugherty pleaded guilty and was convicted in January 2023. He was sentenced to a year in jail. The DMV suspended his driving privileges after the fatal 2020 crash, a DMV report shows. But losing his license wasn’t enough to keep Daugherty off the road, records show.

Two months after his conviction for killing Kazmark, before he reported to jail, police caught him driving on a suspended license.

Still, the DMV reissued Daugherty a license in July 2024.

To recap: That’s two convictions for two dead young women, plus a conviction for driving on a suspended license, and the California DMV says Daugherty can still share the road with you.

“It’s so sad. You make a mistake and then you don’t learn from it and then you cause another person to lose their life,” Mary Kazmark said. “It’s unbelievable that he can continue to drive.”

Orrock said the DMV couldn’t comment on individual drivers.

When law enforcement reports a fatal crash, the agency’s driver safety branch flags all drivers who might be at fault. It then looks into the collision and decides whether the agency should suspend those motorists’ driving privileges. If the driver contests the action, there’s a hearing that could include witness testimony. Suspensions are open-ended. Drivers need to ask for their license back, and agency personnel decide whether the suspension should end or continue. These discretionary suspensions typically last for about a year.

And while officials said the DMV can continue a suspension if they think a driver poses a danger, Orrock said they need to give drivers an opportunity to get their license back. He said there’s no process in the state “to permanently revoke a license.”

Get Your license Back, Get in Trouble Again

Roughly 400 drivers accused of causing a fatal crash since 2019 received a ticket, got in another collision or did both after the date they allegedly killed someone on the road. (The reports don’t show whether the drivers were found at fault, only that they were involved in an accident.) That’s about 15% of the drivers for whom we could get DMV reports.

Drivers like William Beasley.

From 2011 to 2016, Beasley collected five speeding tickets and a citation for running a red light in Sacramento County, court records show. Then around 9 a.m. on a sunny Tuesday in October 2019, he killed a man.

William and Deborah Hester were crossing the street to go to a dentist appointment at a veterans facility when Beasley’s silver pickup sped toward them. They thought they would make it across. But the truck didn’t stop. At the last minute, William Hester shoved his wife out of the way. She heard the truck smash into her husband’s body and screamed, according to court records.

Beasley still didn’t stop. He fled the area and tried to hide his truck. Investigators used nearby cameras and license plate readers to track him down days later. Beasley admitted to being in a collision.

He later pleaded no contest in Sacramento to hit-and-run and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. A probation report in the case revealed Beasley was nearly blind in his left eye.

“Mr. Hester is with me every moment of my life,” Beasley said in an interview. “I took away a father, a grandfather, a husband, and they consider me a murderer. That’s not who I am.”

“My accident with Mr. Hester was just that, an accident. Nothing more,” he said, adding that he worked as a courier for years and sometimes got speeding tickets because he was rushing.

In May 2020, the DMV took away his driving privileges.

In November 2022, Beasley got his license back — “because I could and I needed to,” he said, adding that people deserve second chances, particularly for accidents.

Almost immediately — less than three weeks after getting his license — he was in another collision, his DMV report shows. In early 2024, he got in yet another. His license was suspended when his car insurance was canceled, records show.

“It makes no sense to me that they would give him a license and give him the opportunity to hurt someone else,” said Loriann Hester Page, William Hester’s daughter.

Her father’s death broke the family, she said. He drove a tank in the Army, played guitar in a band, liked to ride horses.

“My dad was such a wonderful, kind man,” she said. “He would always walk in a room and wanted to make everyone smile.”

Beasley said he doesn’t plan to drive again.

“I am 75 years old,” he said. “I am blind in one eye. I have had a situation where a man was killed, he lost his life. I am not going to repeat that situation at all.”

Still on the Road, License Not Suspended

The DMV does have the ability to act quickly. In some cases, it suspended a driver’s license shortly after a fatal crash. However, we found numerous cases in which the DMV did nothing for months or years, often not until a criminal conviction.

In July 2021, truck driver Baljit Singh drove his semi on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, killing a motorcyclist in Kern County, court records show. There are no suspensions listed on his DMV record during that time, even though the agency has the discretion to suspend someone’s license without a conviction.

Less than a year later, as his case wound its way through the slow-moving court system, Singh plowed his semi into the back of a car in Fresno County, killing a woman, records show. He ultimately pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter in Kern County. He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in Fresno for the second fatal crash. The DMV finally took away his driving privileges in February of last year.

Prosecutors say Jadon Mendez was speeding in December 2021 in Santa Clara County when he lost control and caused a crash that killed a mother of three young children. A few weeks later he got a speeding ticket. And yet, the DMV issued him his current driver’s license on Jan. 27, 2022 — 49 days after the fatal crash.

There were no suspensions listed on his DMV record as of early this year, even though Mendez was charged with manslaughter in May 2022. The judge in his case ordered him not to drive, as a condition of his release. But such court orders don’t necessarily show up on a driver’s DMV record.

That might be why he didn’t get in more trouble in December 2022 when he got a speeding ticket in Alameda County. Prosecutors didn’t know about that ticket until CalMatters asked about it, said Angela Bernhard, assistant DA in the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office.

Mendez’s manslaughter case is still open, and his license is still listed as valid.

When asked about the Mendez case and others, Orrock acknowledged that while there’s a DMV process for deciding when to revoke or suspend a license, “sometimes the process takes a while to happen.”

When the DMV Doesn’t Act at All

In many cases, the DMV doesn’t take action even after a conviction.

In May 2022, a semi driver named Ramon Pacheco made a U-turn in front of an oncoming motorcycle, killing 29-year-old Dominic Lopez-Toney, who was finishing his rotations to be a doctor.

Court records show Pacheco had gotten in trouble behind the wheel before. He had been arrested for DUI in 2009, caused a collision in 2013 and got a ticket in 2016 for making an unsafe turn. It wasn’t enough to keep him off the road.

Neither was killing a man.

Months after San Joaquin prosecutors charged Pacheco with vehicular manslaughter, he got into another collision for which he was also deemed most at fault.

As the case dragged on, Lopez-Toney’s large but tight-knit family wrote dozens of letters to the court, pleading for justice. Dorothy Toney wrote that, more than a year since her grandson’s death, she was still haunted by images of his “mangled and broken body” and the gruesome details in the police report. “Somedays,” she wrote, “I wish I had been there to gently hold his hands” and “tell him how much I loved him.”

The letters are full of shock and outrage that the driver had faced so few consequences. “Allowing this truck driver to continue driving and engaging in civilian activities with only a mere consequence of probation is appalling,” wrote Lynelle Sigona, the victim’s aunt.

Pacheco ultimately pleaded no contest to misdemeanor manslaughter and received probation. His DMV record as of Feb. 11 indicates his driving privileges were never suspended; his commercial driver’s license is valid.

Pacheco’s defense attorney, Gil Somera, said his client isn’t a reckless driver. His prior incidents are relatively minimal, he said, given the fact that “truck drivers drive thousands and thousands of miles a year.” Pacheco needed to turn around and didn’t think there was another place he could do so, since he was approaching a residential area, Somera added.

Pacheco wasn’t being “inattentive or reckless,” Somera said. “And it’s unfortunate and sad and tragic this young man died because of this decision he made to make a U-turn.”

In the wake of the tragedy, Lopez-Toney’s mother has become an advocate for truck safety.

“Road safety and truck safety is not a priority right now with our legislators, with our government,” Nora Lopez said. “Changing our mindset, our attitudes, our culture on the roads is not impossible.”

In an interview at her Castro Valley home, she talked about her only child. He was smart and caring, liked snowboarding and animals, loved food. On vacations they would take cooking classes together, Lopez said. He studied molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and was almost done with medical school.

She still has the dry-erase whiteboards in his old room. One is filled with his small and neat study notes; another has what appears to be a to-do list. There’s a note that says “Surgery: 600.” Lopez said that’s when he was due to start his surgical rotation in a San Joaquin hospital, just a couple of days after he died.

She said he just wanted to help people and serve the Native American community as a doctor, a future that a driver snatched away.

“It’s because of a man’s recklessness and carelessness — no regard for humanity,” she said.

While felony manslaughter is an automatic three-year loss of driving privileges, a misdemeanor typically carries no such penalty. It’s discretionary — it’s up to the DMV to decide whether to do anything. And the man who killed Lopez-Toney is far from alone in facing no apparent punishment from the DMV.

We found nearly 200 drivers with a valid license whose DMV record shows a conviction for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter but for whom there is no suspension listed.

When shown a copy of Pacheco’s current driving report, Lopez sat in silence for several seconds.

“Does this make sense to you? It makes no sense to me,” she said. “With his record, how does he still have a license?”

‘Are We Going to Put That Loaded Gun Back in Their hands?’

Research on dangerous drivers appears to be thin and largely outdated.

Liza Lutzker, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, said much of the focus in the traffic safety world is on creating better design and infrastructure, so people who make honest mistakes don’t end up killing someone.

“I think that the issues of these reckless drivers are a separate and complex problem,” Lutzker said. “The system we have clearly is not working. And people are paying with their lives for it.”

Jeffrey Michael, who researches roadway safety issues at Johns Hopkins University and spent three decades working at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said he understands officials might be hesitant to impose harsher penalties more broadly, “for fear of the unintended consequences.”

“We live in a society where driving is really essential,” he said. But he said the findings show the agency needs more scrutiny and analysis of who is on the roads.

“These are not unresolvable problems,” he said.

Leah Shahum, executive director of the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit promoting safe streets, said sometimes officials prioritize preserving people’s ability to drive rather than ensuring safety.

“We don’t all have the right to drive,” Shahum said. “We have the responsibility to drive safely and ensure we don’t hurt others.” She added that many people need to drive in this car-centric state. “That does not mean there can be a license to kill.”

“If we know somebody has a history of dangerous behavior,” she said, “are we going to put that loaded gun back in their hands?”

The gun metaphor was common in the thousands of vehicular manslaughter cases we looked at across California. One prosecutor described dangerous behavior behind the wheel as akin to firing a gun into a crowd.

In letters to the court, surviving relatives and friends described the hole left behind, writing about an empty seat at a high school graduation, a photo cutout taken without fail to home baseball games.

It’s a void one young man tried to explain to authorities — the sudden, violent, blink-of-an-eye moment where life forever changes. For him, it was at 6:45 p.m. on Feb. 27, 2020, on Lone Tree Way in the Bay Area city of Antioch.

Two brothers, ages 11 and 15, were going to meet their dad at a Burger King. They crossed to the median and then waited for a break in the traffic before continuing to the other side. The older one made it across, according to court documents. His younger brother stepped into the street just as a driver gunned his car to 75 miles an hour — 30 over the speed limit.

The older boy watched as his younger brother “just disappeared.”

This is the first piece in a series about how California lets dangerous drivers stay on the road. Sign up for our License to Kill newsletter to be notified when the next story comes out, and to get more behind-the-scenes information from our reporting. 

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The post A License to Kill in California appeared first on GV Wire.

“This past weekend was by far the best weekend I’ve seen in a very long time,” Randy Parker, CEP of Hyundai Motor North America, told reporters Tuesday. The company reported a 13% increase in March sales on Monday compared with a year earlier.

Sales Rise for Auto Dealers

Ford Motor said Monday its March sales at dealerships rose 19%. However, Ford’s sales during the overall quarter slipped 1%, to about 500,000 vehicles, because of a decline in sales to fleet customers, the company said.

General Motors did not provide a separate figure for March, but reported that sales in the first quarter rose 17% from a year earlier, to 693,000 vehicles.

Trump said last week that he would impose 25% tariffs on imported vehicles, effective Thursday. The tariffs will be extended to imported auto parts on May 3. Many cars made in U.S. factories contain parts made abroad, frequently exceeding 50% of the vehicle’s value. Analysts estimate that carmakers will have to increase prices of some models by more than $10,000 to compensate for the new levies.

GM, Ford and Hyundai reported increases in sales of electric vehicles and hybrids. GM said its sales of vehicles powered solely by batteries almost doubled, to 32,000 cars, as the electric version of the Equinox sport utility vehicle became widely available. With a starting price of about $35,000, the Equinox is one of the most affordable electric vehicles available in the United States.

Ford Saw Hybrid Sales Rise 33%

Ford said that sales of hybrid vehicles rose 33% and that sales of electric vehicles such as the Mustang Mach-E rose 12%. Sales of cars with internal combustion engines during the quarter fell 5%.

Hyundai said that sales of hybrids soared 68% while sales of pure electric vehicles rose 3%.

Parker said he could not estimate what impact tariffs would have on the company’s prices. Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, have factories in Georgia and Alabama but they import substantial numbers of vehicles from South Korea.

“We haven’t made any firm decisions yet,” Parker said. But he added, “Don’t wait to buy tomorrow what you can buy today.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jack Ewing/Brett Carlsen
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

The post Auto Sales Surged in Anticipation of Trump’s Tariffs appeared first on GV Wire.

Details of the tariffs remain unclear, including whether they will apply broadly to all imports of cars and car parts, or be more narrowly tailored.

Stock markets fell on news that the auto tariffs would be implemented, with shares in American automakers declining. The S&P 500 was down more than 1% in early afternoon trading. Most auto stocks were down around 2%.

Tariffs could encourage auto companies to set up more factories in the United States, a primary goal for Trump. But depending on how broadly they are imposed, tariffs could also disrupt supply chains for carmakers, chill their investments and significantly raise costs for consumers.

Measure Could Spark Trade Clashes

The measure could also spark more trade clashes with foreign countries, particularly European nations, Japan and South Korea, whose companies send many cars to the United States.

Trump has argued that tariffs will help revive American manufacturing, but some industry executives and analysts have warned that the measures could backfire. If automakers see the cost of their components go up too much, for example, that could shrink their profits and dissuade them from making new investments. Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States are imported, and almost 60% of the parts in vehicles assembled in the United States are imported, according to data from Wall Street research firm Bernstein.

Putting tariffs on foreign cars is an idea that the president has mentioned more frequently in recent weeks, and it would significantly expand the economic impact of his trade moves.

The auto industry is a major employer in the United States but heavily dependent on foreign parts. Car companies have also set up their supply chains to snake across the borders with Canada and Mexico. And cars are often the single biggest purchase for American families, meaning that additional costs from tariffs could weigh heavily on consumers.

Ken Kim, a senior economist at KPMG Economics, said in a note Wednesday that he had seen a “sizable jump” in orders for vehicles and parts in February, as the car industry put in more orders before tariffs on steel and aluminum would come into effect. He cited industry estimates saying that the price of a new vehicle would increase by several thousand dollars — perhaps more than $10,000 — because of tariffs.

Car Tariffs Would Be an Addition to Other Tariffs

The car tariffs would come in addition to other expansive tariffs Trump has introduced in recent months. Since coming into office, Trump has added an additional 20% tariff to all U.S. imports from China. He also imposed a 25% tariff on almost all goods from Canada and Mexico, before exempting roughly half of those imports, which trade under the rules of the North American trade agreement.

Trump plans to introduce more levies April 2, when he has said he will announce “reciprocal tariffs” that match the high tariffs and other trade barriers that other countries impose on American exports.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Ana Swanson and Jack Ewing/Erin Schaff
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

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