Drivers

Look around you the next time you're on the road. Chances are, you'll see someone still holding a smart phone to their ear, someone else with the phone on the steering wheel as they text, another peering down at something in their lap rather than looking at the road in front of them. A new survey released Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has determined that there is an army-sized group of 660,000 drivers out on the roads at any given moment of the day, texting, tweeting or otherwise partially preoccupied by something other than driving.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will post a request online Friday morning soliciting comments in the Federal Register on a range of topics, including a proposed "Silver Car Rating System for Older Occupants. " All of the comments are being sought for possible changes in the NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), which provides vehicle information that enables consumers to compare the safety performance and features of new vehicles. "A 'silver car' rating system in NCAP could be developed as a tool for providing crash safety information for older consumers," the request for comments said.

Richard Garcia was busy ticketing a Scion for blocking the street sweeper's path when a neighbor broke in with a question. "Are you allowed to paint your own curb red?" Edsel Ortiz said. Of course not, but Ortiz would have to take it up with headquarters. Another neighbor on Mountain View Street in L.A.'s Westlake neighborhood, however, wouldn't let it go. "She said she's the homeowner and we're just renters," said Tony See, dressed in slip-on rubber sandals and shorts, pointing to a driveway flanked by telltale red. "She's a bad neighbor!

An 18-year-old accused of driving into the back of a minivan while drunk, killing five members of a family, had escaped from a juvenile correctional center 30 days before the crash, according to a public official and Orange County records. Jean Ervin Soriano escaped on March 1 from the Youth Guidance Center in Santa Ana, which is operated by the county's probation department. Details of how Soriano escaped and what efforts the department took to locate him were unknown. At least one county supervisor said he was furious the probation department had not notified the board about the connection until Monday, two days after the fatal crash on Interstate 15 in Nevada.

SEATTLE - A man accused of brutally attacking a Sikh cab driver, stomping on him as he lay on the ground and ripping out part of his beard, has been indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with a hate crime. The indictment of Jamie Larson, 49, of Federal Way, Wash., replaces earlier state charges. Conviction under the federal hate crimes statute carries a potential penalty of 10 years in prison. King County authorities who initially investigated the case said the taxi driver, a native of India, was wearing a traditional Sikh turban when he responded to a request from Auburn police on Oct. 17 to take Larson home from a Fred Meyer store, where he was drunk, falling in the bushes and refusing to leave.  Along the way, the driver later told police, Larson commented on his turban and told him he shouldn't have come to the U.S., saying his father was a soldier who had fought for America.

A man thought to be a transient was killed Monday night in a hit-and-run in downtown Los Angeles, police said. Initial information indicated the man was crossing Mateo Street near 6th Street when he apparently fell in the roadway, said Los Angeles police spokesman Richard French. The man was not in a crosswalk, French said, and it was not clear why he fell. A southbound light-colored vehicle struck the man shortly before 8 p.m., French said. Police believe the driver stopped, got out of his vehicle and "took a look at the person" before driving off, French said.

More than nine times out of 10, U.S. drivers know when to use their horns. But on most other written driving quiz questions, it was an epic fail. CarInsurance.com, which has been offering drivers advice about car insurance and how to shop for it since 2003, recently polled 500 drivers ages 18 and over on questions found on typical written driving tests. Of those polled, 44% scored less than 80% on the 20-question quiz. CarInsurance.com says that 80% or better is usually required to pass a written driving test.

Three brothers and their families piled into a Chevy Astro van and made the long haul from East Los Angeles to Denver to say goodbye to a dying patriarch. Their oldest brother, Elijio Fernandez Jr., 54, stayed behind. He didn't have it in him to go. He never forgave his dad for abandoning them as children. Now the dull bitterness of a father's long-ago absence was entwined with wrenching fresh grief. As the family returned on Interstate 15 through Nevada in the pre-dawn dark Saturday, the teenage driver of a Dodge Durango slammed into the back of their vehicle 30 miles south of Mesquite.

A driver admitted to authorities he had “too many” beers to drink before hitting a van on a remote Nevada highway, killing five members of the same family in the other vehicle, an arrest report shows. Jean Ervin Soriano, 18, told a Nevada Highway Patrol deputy he had been drinking Budweisers before the violent crash on Interstate 15 in southeastern Nevada early Saturday morning that killed three brothers, a wife and a 13-year-old girl, according to the report. Several beer bottles were found in his car, police said.

Five members of a Southern California family who died in a Nevada accident over the weekend were identified Sunday, the Associated Press reported. The five: 41-year-old Genaro Fernandez of Norwalk, 49-year-old Raudel Fernandez-Avila and 53-year-old Belen Fernandez of Lynwood, and 13-year-old Angela Sandoval and 45-year-old Leonardo Fernandez-Avila of Los Angeles, according to the AP. A spokesperson for the Clark County coroner's office told the AP that the relationship among the family members was still unknown, but the Nevada Highway Patrol said Saturday it included a man, his teenage daughter, and her aunt and two uncles.