New Year’s Eve, the holiday devoted to getting drunk, took its usual deadly toll in North Texas. Here are reports about the holiday’s DWI deaths in DFW and a related story about the poster child of drunk driving in North Texas – if not the country. These add to our dismal December drunk driving crashes.
The decedent was going to work when a pickup truck rear ended his vehicle at an extremely fast speed.
The drunk driver fled the scene but police helicopters located him and he was arrested for intoxication manslaughter. He has a long criminal history and we believe should be given a lengthy jail sentence.
As you walk in Fort Worth, Dallas, or another city in North Texas, you had better be extra careful. The number of pedestrian deaths in Texas has soared according to a new study. A shocking 619 Texans who were on foot perished last year. This is an all-time record. The latest victim died on Wednesday evening in north Fort Worth as she crossed a street. This post explains what families of the deceased should do if, God forbid, the unthinkable happens to someone they love.
The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments Friday here in Fort Worth in the nationally-watched sanctions case of Brewer v. Lennox Hearth Products. There was a packed courtroom and an overflow crowd at Texas A&M Law School.
The Court’s decision will set boundaries on just how far a lawyer can go to win a trial. And making the hearing even more sensational, the attorney in question, William Brewer III of Dallas and New York City, has often been in the headlines, most recently while representing the National Rifle Association.
We don’t know why every weekend produces another round of fatal car and truck crashes across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Or why we treat this news as if it is inevitable. Or that there is nothing we can do about it. But we all know that it can be frightening to drive on our North Texas highways. This past weekend produced more tragedies including these:
I joined several hundred people on Saturday morning at the national headquarters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Las Colinas for its signature event, the Walk and Dash Like MADD.
We were there to pay tribute to those who had lost their lives in driving while intoxicated crashes, increase public awareness of this epidemic, and raise money. The comraderie was strong as families displayed photographs and personal displays, rebuilt motorcycles, and other memories of their loved ones.
Families held hands and walked and ran several miles together. A Dallas City Councilman eulogized a former city councilwoman and her daughter who were recently killed in a DWI crash.
The Texas Longhorns and its huge fan base (including Mr. Berenson who graduated from the University of Texas in 1976) are in mourning after learning that Cedric Benson died in a motorcycle crash in Austin Saturday night. What a terrible way to begin the football season.
Cedric was one of the best running backs in the history of Texas high school and the University, then played eight years in the NFL with the Bears, Bengals, and Packers. He was 36 years old. We extend my condolences to his family and the family of his passenger who also died at the scene.
We at Berenson Injury Law want our roads to be safer for all motorists, including for those who ride motorcycles. You have to ask
Sunday morning in Fort Worth, a one vehicle collision caused six people to die at 2:00 a.m. – when the nearby bars were closing – on Northside Drive. A truck speeding out of control failed to negotiate a turn and crashed into a tree. Even a homeless man died. And this heartbreaking story was not even the only fatal DWI crash in DFW that day.
Later that evening, a 17-year-old passenger in a masssive car wreck went into labor and delivered a stillborn child. Her driver was speeding on Great Southwest Parkway when he blew through a red light and crashed into a pickup truck. That driver and his two passengers who were in their 70s were seriously injured. What makes this story even more maddening is that the car driver, who was only 17, was driving while intoxicated and didn’t even have a driver’s license.
What is going on out there?
Carolyn Davis died and her daughter is in critical condition after a Mazda SUV crashed head-on into their car. The horrific wreck in Oak Cliff is just the latest DWI crash in North Texas.
And here is an even worse part of this story, if that is possible. The drunk driver, a 36-year-old man, had already been arrested at least three times for DWI. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison after his most recent conviction. But the sentence was suspended because he agreed to drive a vehicle that had an ignition interlock device. Just last week, he completed his probation and the device was removed from his vehicle. This tragedy was a few days later.
UPDATED 7/18 – This tragedy worsened when Melissa Lashan Davis-Nunn died last night in the hospital. The drunk driver has been charged with two counts of intoxication manslaughter. The drunk told police that he had taken Xanax and claimed he was riding with two others, although no other passengers were found at the scene. and was joking with a nurse that he was there for a penile enhancemenet procedure.
As we are often wondering on this blog, what in the world is going on out there? And how can we keep the same catastrophes from happening again?
Deadly car and truck accidents happen across the DFW area almost every day. One happened near our office last week when an SUV rolled over on I-30 which critically injured several people and took the life of a 22-year-old woman. Here’s a photograph from the scene. And on Sunday night, two people were ejected from a truck in a rollover accident east of Dallas. Since rollovers accidents have the highest fatality rate of any collision, this is an important public safety topic for all of us.
Rollovers happen for a number of reasons and are more complex from a liability viewpoint than other vehicle accidents.
Fort Worth Injury Attorney Blog