Fort Worth Injury Attorney Blog

Case solicitation by lawyers is illegal in Texas. However, unscrupulous lawyers would still cold call victims, or even show up at their door, to try to sign them up as clients. And chiropractors would solicit accident victims and refer them to attorneys. Fortunately, this unethical practice is now prohibited.

Ten people have now died as a result of a gruesome wreck on a northeast Oklahoma turnpike.

A big rig had crashed into at least three cars minutes earlier. These vehicles were stopped when another tractor trailer smashed into them. Investigators believe that the tractor did not try to slow down before the crash and was likely travelling at over 75mph.

Nine people were declared dead at the scene. Another woman, Shelby Hayes, of Frisco, Texas, was one of two survivors when she was flown to a Joplin hospital Friday afternoon. She died about 7 a.m. Sunday, according to an updated report from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Two others with her, Randall Hayes, 38, and Ethan Hayes, 7, died at the scene.

A 12-year-old girl from Phoenix whose parents were both killed in the wreck is in serious condition in a Kansas City hospital.

Donald Creed of Willard, MO, the 76-year-old driver of the tractor-trailer rig that slammed into the cars that were stopped for another accident, was hospitalized in good condition.

Our thoughts go out to the families and friends of those killed in this terrible crash.

Harris County (Houston, TX) has installed sensors that detect wrong-way drivers using the same technology that is currently used to detect vehicles at traffic lights and to report traffic conditions on freeways. The sensors, installed at exit ramps along the Westpark Tollway, have been triggered 10 times since being installed last year. All of the drivers were stopped before they caused an accident. Six of them were suspected of being under the influence.

Installing a similar sensor system in Dallas is currently being considered by The North Texas Tollway Authority. Spike strips are also being considered.

With Fort Worth building its own tollway soon, we expect similar problems with wrong-way drivers on our road. If you are involved in a wreck with a drunk driver, call our law firm at 817-885-8000. We sue drunk drivers and bad drivers who injure innocent people.

Type rest of the post here

Fort Worth will be getting an additional 10 red light cameras this fall, adding to the current set of 17 around town.

Red light cameras are credited with a decrease in the number of t-bone and certain other types of collisions, but they have resulted in an increased number of rear-end collisions because because of drivers stopping quickly to avoid going through a stale yellow.

Red light violations are the cause of a large percentage of our cases. If you have been injured by a driver running a red light or if you've been rear-ended by a driver hoping to make it through a light you stopped at, please call our office at 817-885-8000 to discuss your case.

Full article from the Star-Telegram is available below.

FORT WORTH — Keep a foot over the brake pedal, Fort Worth. More red-light cameras are coming to an intersection near you.

Fort Worth has 25 cameras at 17 intersections and plans to install 10 more at six intersections in the fall, Transportation Director Bill Verkest said Tuesday. The city has also hired a collection agent to go after the 44 percent of violators who haven’t paid their tickets.

The cameras have resulted in about $1.2 million in fines since their use began in 2008. But $765,000 went for expenses (including payments to ATS, the contractor and court costs), $221,000 went to the state and $221,000 went to the city. About $950,000 in fines has not been collected.

"We’re not making a tremendous amount of money," Verkest said.

And, no, Verkest told the City Council, the city hasn’t shortened the yellow-light times to catch more drivers.

Councilman Carter Burdette, who has been a proponent of red-light cameras, dismissed as "urban myths" the ideas that the city was tinkering with the light timing to bring in more.

"I suspect a lot of the people who fostered those urban myths may have been caught by red-light cameras," he said.

Fort Worth officials have said the main purpose of the cameras is to reduce accidents caused by drivers who run red lights. So far, accidents are down 19 percent at the targeted intersections. Rear-end collisions increased slightly, but more dangerous types of collisions decreased, such as T-bone collisions.

The city has averaged more than 4,000 violations a month since October, when the second phase of cameras started operating. Violators face a $75 fine but can fight the citation in court.

The money that the city collects has been spent on sidewalks in school zones and loop detector sensors that help time traffic lights.

Fox 4 DFW reports:

A truck plummeted from an overpass onto Interstate 35W Monday afternoon. Miraculously the driver survived.

According to police, the truck's driver may have been going too fast on the access road. He missed a turn onto Berry Street, crashed through a guard rail and landed top down on the freeway below.

The crash stopped traffic on the southbound lanes of the freeway between Berry and Ripy streets and from Interstate 30. The Texas Department of Transportation even turned off its cameras fearing a graphic scene.

But police said the driver, who was cut from the vehicle, survived. First responders expecting to find a lifeless body in the truck's wreckage actually found a man with only cuts and bruises.

People who witnessed the crash described the driver as "blessed."

"That was a God thing," said Crystal Lewis. "He got out of the car and he lived to see it. So that's God."

The man was taken to a local hospital with no apparent broken bones, police said.

Fort Worth police Sgt. Scott Jenkins called the accident an "absolute miracle," especially because the truck didn't land on another car and no other car hit the truck after it fell.

"Anyone who looks at this freeway from say 4 p.m. to 7, most of the time it's bumper to bumper traffic moving at about 45 miles per hour. So we got lucky. A lot of people were lucky," Jenkins said.

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Congress voted on a huge list of bills Monday. Some passed, some failed, and some are in limbo.

The booster seat law I talked about a while ago passed. Children under 8 years old and under 4'9" are now required to ride in booster seats in cars.

On the losing end of the day, a bill that would have allowed police to set up sobriety roadblocks in large counties and cities was voted down.

full article with all the bills available here