MADD Seminar Attended

I attended Mother Against Drunk Driving’s first annual seminar for personal injury attorneys. This taught DWI collision attorneys how we can more effectively represent injured people in drunk and drugged collision cases. It is being held at the national MADD headquarters in Las Colinas.

Some of the topics being discussed include

  • Investigating crash scenes and obtaining evidence
  • Working with law enforcement, prosecutors, and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission
  • Evaluating and prosecuting a dram shop case (where a bar or restaurant over serves a customer)
  • Suing other responsible companies
  • Resolving evidentiary problems
  • Counseling victims and their families
  • Utilizing available resources

Drunk Driving Accidents in Texas

Texas has far more drunk driving accidents than any other state in the nation, year after year.

Can these be stopped or at least reduced? Sure.

MADD has a map of each state’s efforts to curtail DWI collisions and ranks them in five critical categories. Texas only earned a score of 2.5 out of 5. Only three states are as bad or worse than us.

MADD has specific advice on the right side of this chart below on how can eliminate or at least reduce the death and injury rate.

How This Affects You

We here in the Dallas Fort Worth area have a serious drinking and driving problem. Just last year,139 people were killed and approximately 2,500 people were injured in Tarrant and Dallas Counties in DWI collisions.

Going out to a bar or just staying home and getting tanked, getting in a car or truck, and barreling down the highway is standard operating procedure for far too many people.

I was just appointed by a judge to represent a 16-year-old woman who was seriously injured in January when her driver inhaled paint remover while driving her small car at a speed of 50 miles an hour and crashed into a concrete barrier. I spoke with her father this morning and his daughter just had to have another surgery on her face. She also fractured her nose, hand, and a vertebrae in her lumbar spine. These often high speed DWI cases are often catastrophic.

I was contacted yesterday by a man in Beaumont who said that he was paralyzed due to a commercial vehicle whose driver was intoxicated;. He said that he was offered a huge settlement and wanted to know whether more money was available and whether the offer was fair.

I settled a case last week for the policy limits of three insurance policies for two young people who live in Fort Worth. Fortunately they were not that injured.

Why We Must Support MADD

A staggering 10,265 people are killed and almost 300,000 people are injured each year in this country due to these entirely preventable collisions.

As a personal injury lawyer, I unfortunately have to represent many people and their families.

My law firm is proud to be the presenting sponsor of the Walk Like MADD in Fort Worth each year. The walk is taking place on October 21st and I invite you to join us to raise public awareness, honor the victims and their families of these tragic vehicle crashes, and raise funds.

Driving while intoxicated crashes are far too common here. That’s where organizations like MADD come in, to try to stop these crimes from happening. MADD works tirelessly to make our streets safer.

Be a part of the solution, as MADD urges you to do. Support this worthwhile organization.

Let’s stop drunk and drugged driving.

 

Share This Post