Vehicles

SAN DIEGO -- The CHP is investigating an apparent vehicle crash down a steep gorge west of Borrego Springs that left one man dead, authorities said. A passerby Wednesday morning spotted the vehicle and the body about 100 feet off the road in the Ranchita area. It is unclear when the crash may have occurred. The San Diego County medical examiner is attempting to identify the body and notify family members. ALSO: Petraeus apology for affair doesn't go far enough String of earthquakes strikes California desert area Supreme Court likely to strike down DOMA marriage law, experts say tony.perry@latimes.com  

After her father drove off the road on the Sierra Highway in the middle of the night, a 9-year old girl hiked through difficult terrain near Acton to get help but her father died at the scene from injuries sustained in the crash. The girl was a passenger in a Ford Escape traveling southbound on Sierra Highway near Soledad Canyon Road south of Lancaster in the Antelope Valley. Officials at the California Highway Patrol said the girl's father, who was 35, lost control of the vehicle, which went over an embankment at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday and rolled over multiple times.

It's all crossovers these days. From the polo grounds of Malibu to the campgrounds of Maine, nearly a fifth of all vehicles sold in the U.S. last year resided somewhere in this netherworld between a car and an SUV. So the stakes were high for Toyota's overdue redesign of the RAV4, a pioneer of the segment in the mid-1990s that had grown stale in comparison with competitors. Often resembling small sport utility vehicles, crossovers are truck-like vehicles built on front-drive car platforms.

Taking aim at "America's most abused narcotic," congressional lawmakers introduced legislation Wednesday that would place tighter restrictions on the painkiller hydrocodone, which is a key contributor to the nation's prescription drug death epidemic. Sold under the brand names Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, hydrocodone-based medications "are some of the most potent and addictive narcotics on the market," U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) said in a statement. Buchanan is one of four lawmakers - two Republicans and two Democrats - who introduced the Safe Prescribing Act of 2013.

A new National Research Council report says the U.S. may be able to reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 in light-duty cars and trucks. The highly ambitious goal could be reached, the report says, through a combination of more efficient vehicles and the use of gasoline and diesel alternatives such as bio-fuels, electricity and hydrogen. "To reach the 2050 goals for reducing petroleum use and greenhouse gases, vehicles must become dramatically more efficient, regardless of how they are powered," said Douglas M. Chapin, principal of MPR Associates and chairman of the committee that wrote the report.

Two women whose truck was riddled with bullets fired by Los Angeles police officers in a case of mistaken identity during the pursuit of fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner will receive a $40,000 cash settlement to replace their vehicle. Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich announced the deal reached between city officials and the women's attorney, Glen Jonas, at a Thursday afternoon news conference. Officials stressed that the money was to compensate the women for the loss of the truck and is separate from any discussions regarding potential litigation involving the Los Angeles Police Department shooting incident.

An airbag problem forced Nissan to recall of a bunch of its cars Wednesday, including its Altima sedan, Leaf electric car, Sentra compact car, Pathfinder sport-utility and the upscale Infiniti JX35. Late last year, the automaker started to see cars come into its dealers with warranty claims about the airbag system.  Sensors placed in the passenger seat were faulty and caused the system to malfunction and could block activation of the airbag in the event of a crash. The same part is in all of the autos, which are 2013 model year vehicles.

It was the sort of letter designed to get attention. "Final attempt to notify," it said on the outside. Within, an official-looking "product warranty expiration notice" said that my Toyota's service contract "is expiring or has expired. " It provided a number to call "to extend coverage. " This was troubling because when I purchased my "certified pre-owned" car from a dealer in 2011, I paid $1,700 for a seven-year, 100,000-mile extended warranty. Now it was expiring? The answer, of course, was no. And the racket I'm about to run down is yet another reminder that you need to examine closely anything that even remotely looks like a financial warning.

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. After two years of disappointing sales of its Leaf electric sedan, Nissan replaced the executive overseeing its electric-car program. Toshiyuki Shiga, the automaker's chief operating officer will take charge of Nissan's zero-emission-vehicle planning and strategy as well as production of batteries for such cars, the company said.   Hideaki Watanabe, a corporate vice president who headed the division, was shuttled off to a Nissan-affiliated supplier.

The brightly colored vans advertising "Topless Maids $99" caused a stir in Burbank last year when they were seen parked on city streets for days on end, prompting officials to publicly denounce them as eyesores and visual blight. Last week, the City Council voted to ban vehicles whose main purpose is advertising. There are some exemptions, such as pizza and mail delivery vehicles. "What we're capturing with this ordinance is those signs that are bolted to a van, leaned against a van, trailers that are unhitched and left in the public right of way," Deputy City Planner Patrick Prescott said at Tuesday's meeting.