Local officials have for years lobbied to have the steep, winding highway cut off to semi-trucks. A similar accident, in which one person was seriously injured, occurred at about the same location last September.
While state legislation has been proposed to close the highway to large trucks, Dreier said in his letter to the FHA that he was “also troubled that trucks are routed onto a road not suitable for tractor railers by navigation devices not equipped with appropriate information for commercial vehicle use.”
Promoting more research into satellite global positioning technology could lead to more accurate routing information for truck drivers, he argued.
Schiff pushes for leeway on forensic labs
The U.S. House last week amended a federal funding bill to allow greater leeway in how police agencies staff forensic labs after Rep. Adam Schiff pushed for the change as a way to cut down on a backlog of cases.
Schiff’s amendment would create an exemption to requirements that federal funds for the Community Oriented Policing Services program be used only to hire sworn officers, allowing cities to use the money to more easily staff and support forensic labs. Los Angeles County alone has a backlog of roughly 4,700 unprocessed “rape kits,” investigations where DNA evidence has been recovered and is awaiting analysis, according to Schiff’s office.
In February, Schiff secured $1 million for a Glendale-based forensic crime lab to more quickly process local cases.
The provision was included in the COPS Improvements Act of 2009, which provides grants to states and cities to hire more officers and support crime prevention programs.
