I've said it many times - Rules and Regulations (R&R) that require improvement in human behavior are general fruitless unless heavily enforce. R&R applied to products can be effective, especiall if the non-complying product cannot be sold (legally).

This should be printed and posted at every high school. It is very good comprehensive advice.

Let add that there is no way for the law to punish the caller unless it can be established that she knew the other party was driving at the time.
Having a cell phone with Caller ID made it possible for me (in business) to ignore the phone when driving and latter calling the ID person to see what the call was about.
I even sometimes yelled at my wife/kids to shut up when traffic was particularly crowded nasty. It pays to scan thru the windows for the car ahead for brake lights and to watch what is going around in nearby lanes. Hard to do when listening in a conversation even off-line.

A driver cannot prevent someone from SENDing an email (or calling) but he can ignore the cell phone or turn it off. We may soon see an attempt to mandate that new cars are somehow blocked from receiving such calls, which would handicap the passengers unless that blanket could be zoned to the driver position only.

There is no mention of how much of an overload the bad" tire placad would cause. My guess is that it is less than 100 pounds which would be well within the safety factor of any tire today. The NHTSA post does not say what the overload is.

There are no practical alternatives to motor vehicles for most of us. However, it will be a while before a family can justify having more than one vehicle per adult driver. The word MPV Multipurpose Passenger Vehicle was coined dduring the Jimmie Carter recession for a similar reason. Minivans were born to satisfy that need.

Great news.Now that the vehicles are equipped with so many airbags and adequate seat structures, it appears that the focus will be more devoted to crash avoidance. Many rollovers (really bad events) are triggered by a last minute steering wheel yank in an attempt to avoid running into something. Lane departure warning will help avoid the sudden over reaction to a nudge from either side.

"Those Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" Remember that?

Kurt, you are delivering old news. When I began at GM Engineering Staff in 1955, the Proving Grounds was already running the annual Durability Run each winter. Running around the clock, each example of a cars from five GM divisions and many from our competitors cars got 25,000 miles on the various PG roads and the salt-bath troughs.
Then every car, engine and transmission was torn down. All parts were spread out for examination by technicians, designers (me) and management. I believe that the Run was extended after I left, then finally discontinued for $$$
reasons.
Forensic Science is an old business. As an engineer and later as an Accident Reconstructionist, that is what I and others did daily.

There is a difference betweens reins and reigns. Look it up and hang your head in shame. Tsk tsk