Texas legislators meeting in Austin are considering several bills that target unsafeTexas drivers. That’s certainly good news. Our roads are extremely deadly and I support efforts to make them safer.
The first new state law would force drivers convicted due to dangerously high blood alcohol contents to have devices installed in their cars to test their breath. However state probation officers say they are already overworked and don’t have time to enforce this law if it passes. But as someone who has had to represent far too many people injured in DWI crashes we need to keep these drivers off of our highways.
Higher penalties have been proposed if reckless driving causes serious injury or death to a driver or passenger. This law was filed after dangerous driver was fined only $200.00. House Bill 955 would raise the maximum to $2,000.00. Road rage alone caused seven fatal accidents and 102 crashes resulting in serious injury in 2011 in Texas.
Further, a commission to study the effect sleep-deprived drivers have on highway safety and to recommend how to make our roads safer will happen if House Bill 295 is passed. It was inspired by Wanda Lindsay, whose husband John died in 2010 after a sleeping 18 wheeler trucker rear-ended their car on Interstate 30 near Texarkana. However the trucking lobby opposes the bill, saying that it would increase liability for its truck drivers.
Finally, the most controversial law will ban driving while texting. I discussed that last week after Republican representative Tom Craddick, the former Speaker of the House, proposed it.
Please contact your state representative or senator and urge him or her to vote for these laws.
Above is a photo from a new case I’m working on. My clients were rear ended as they were parked on the shoulder of a West Texas highway. The man who crashed into them admitted to the police that he was texting while driving. Now his insurance company has denied that he said that, denied what the police officer reported, and is supposedly investigating the case further — even though we have already forwarded an independent eyewitness statement that even further proves liability. I will file suit to protect the rights of my clients if the insurance company does not concede that its driver was texting while driving and is 100% at fault.
After a collision, a driver’s recourse is to make a claim and/or file a lawsuit against the at fault driver to recover his damages — something I’ve been doing here in the D/FW area for the last 33 years.Please contact my office if you have been unfortunately injured in a collision and have any questions or if I can help you.