With just a week left in this legislative session, Governor Landry has signed several new auto insurance laws, and he says they will shield Louisianans from frivolous lawsuits driven by trial lawyers. One of the laws disallows a driver without car insurance from collecting an award for bodily injury medical expenses for any amount when damages are below 100 thousand, up from 15-thousand dollars. The governor says they also eliminated a provision known as the Housley Presumption…
The Office of Motor Vehicles is warning Louisianans not to fall for text messages that claim to be from them saying the recipient has an outstanding traffic ticket. The texts are not from them, and they say they do not send texts or emails threatening prosecution. They urge you not to click on links from unverified sources and say don’t give them any personal information. Instead delete all suspicious texts and emails and report them to reportfraud.ftc.gov.
A new bidding process to purchase a new voting system has been approved by lawmakers. Over ten-thousand old machines will be replaced and Joel Watson with the Secretary of State’s office says Louisiana’s voting machines have needed an upgrade for decades, but bidding controversies and delays marred progress.
New machines will produce physical paper ballots voters can review, confirm and submit.
A bill allowing darker tint for front windows in vehicles awaits a signature from Governor Landry but before the bill overwhelmingly passed both houses, some expressed concern that the darker tint would hinder law enforcement’s ability to see things like firearms and contraband. Bill author Representative Daryl Deshotel (DESH-uh-tell) says law enforcement organizations had no problem with the new standard.
Deshotel says this bill brings Louisiana in line with other states which suffer through brutal summer heat.