Head-on crashes are more frequently fatal than many other types of wrecks due to the high speeds and impact forces usually involved. Many head-on crashes are caused by people driving the wrong way down the road, as happened in a fatal Houston collision on Memorial Day weekend. Statistics show that more than 60% of the wrong way drivers are drunk at the time of the fatal accidents they cause.
But head-on crashes also result from driver distraction, speeding, and driver impatience, among other things. For example, one recent collision that claimed the life of Mattie Jones, 82, occurred because a driver in a Dodge pickup truck tried to go around a slowing vehicle pulling a Meals on Wheels trailer. The Dodge sideswiped the Meals on Wheels truck before crashing head-on into Ms. Jones’s car. Another vehicle also became snared in the crash, and reportedly one victim was trapped in a vehicle at the scene.
The fatal crash in Longview, Texas happened on FM 1844. 31-year-old Leon Gearhart, the driver of the Dodge pickup truck, reportedly was being charged with criminally negligent homicide. (Michael Cavazos, Longview News-Journal, 5/20/14) The Pearland car accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC express their sincere condolences to the family and friends of Ms. Mattie Jones.
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The Houston Police Department has warned that its officers will be out in force this holiday weekend. The goal is to help ensure public safety by getting drunken drivers off the road.
In recent years, many Texas law enforcement agencies have stepped up officer presence on holidays in an effort to deter drunk driving. Our Houston car accident injury attorneys emphasize that no refusal weekends have become the norm for major holidays. So if you are arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, you can almost certainly look forward to having your blood tested for alcohol content.
Yet stepped up enforcement and stronger DWI penalties in recent years don’t seem to have deterred Houston drivers. Harris County still leads the nation in the number of drunken drivers. And this holiday weekend kicked off with two suspected drunken drivers driving right into HPD patrols.
Around midnight on Thursday, one driver suspected of intoxication crashed right into an HPD officer on patrol. The officer was turning onto the Gulf Freeway frontage road from Park Place when a driver ran a red light and smacked into the patrol car. The man failed a field sobriety test, and was arrested on suspicion of DWI. (Field sobriety test #1: Avoid crashing into law enforcement vehicles.)
A second HPD officer responding to that crash was then almost hit by another driver. That driver was also arrested on suspicion of DWI. (khou.com, 5/23/14)
For your safety and the safety of others, we remind you to drive sober this holiday weekend and always. But for those who do drink and drive, the Houston car accident injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC ask that you please continue to make yourselves conspicuous to the HPD so that they can remove you from the roads more quickly. Fewer drunken drivers on our roads mean fewer needless injuries and deaths.
Reach our Board Certified Houston car accident injury attorneys by phone at 713-807-9500 or anytime through our convenient online request form. Our goal is to help make your accident recovery as quick and as painless as possible. Contact us and let us help you.
You might know that vehicles occasionally roll out of their supposedly secure “park” and “off” positions to damage property, and kill or maim their drivers or innocent bystanders. Such an accident happened just this week in Houston where a Ford truck ran over its elderly driver as he was stopped at an ATM machine.
Our Houston car accident injury attorneys point out that in postal delivery companies, where drivers might make dozens of stops per day, drivers sometimes become complacent or simply pressured by delivery deadlines and don’t always take all necessary steps to secure their vehicles. And their trucks are even more likely than yours to have worn parking gears that might not fully engage.
A document I noticed online, which was apparently intended as internal document for one of these postal delivery entities, indicated the heavy financial liabilities that the company might suffer as its trucks ran over employees, other persons, and property. The document mentioned that the company was experiencing at least one unintended rollaway accident per delivery day. That statistic no doubt becomes quite expensive. And the document begged drivers to take all possible precautions to secure their vehicles before they exited to deliver their mail.
Some Tips for Preventing a Fatal Rollaway Accident:
Click the link to read about the recent fatall rollaway accident in Houston that took the life of an unsuspecting Ford pickup driver.
In Texas, more than three times as many DUI crashes are fatal and nearly twice as many DUI wrecks cause serious injuries compared to other types of accidents. On rural roads, TxDOT statistics for 2012 show that only 1.59% of all accidents were fatal. Our Pearland car accident lawyers note that those wrecks claimed 1,892 lives. Where the crashes were alcohol-related, 5.88% of the wrecks on Texas rural roads claimed lives. 30.77% of DUI crashes, almost one third, caused serious injuries, while only 17.76% of all accidents resulted in serious injury.
In Texas urban areas, the proportions are similar. Only 0.44% of all crashes were fatal in 2012, but of the DUI wrecks, 2.69% were fatal. 23% of the alcohol-related wrecks resulted in serious injuries, compared to only 14.43% overall.
Higher speeds, dangerous head-on crashes, and wrong way driving account for much of the disproportionate toll taken on lives and limbs by DUI crashes. Drunken drivers are dangerous drivers with impaired judgment. They take greater risks with your lives and with their own. This is equally true of drivers impaired by drugs or a mixture of drugs and alcohol. It is the impairment that matters: impaired vision, reflexes, reaction times, decision-making abilities, and judgment make for a dangerous cocktail of deficiency behind the wheel.
Individuals react differently to alcohol and drugs. Some can drive normally when they’ve had a few drinks. Others began to veer into other lanes with only one drink under their belt. Know your limits.
DUI accidents are 100% avoidable. There are always alternatives to drinking and driving. If you know you’re going to be out drinking, plan for another way home. The Pearland car accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC urge you to bring a designated driver; take a cab; or take public transportation. But don’t drink or drug and drive. Seriously: the life you save might be your own. As the statistics prove, the consequences of a DUI crash can be especially deadly. Click the link to read about a horrific DUI crash that took a woman’s life.
The Houston car accident injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC note that our roads are becoming more crowded as the population increases. And we’re all spending more and more of our time on the road as commute times lengthen. Unfortunately, that means that more frustrated drivers are losing their cool and taking out their road rage on other drivers, on passengers, and on bystanders.
Statistics from the U.S. NHTSA and an auto club reveal that:
Aggressive drivers might just have higher anger levels generally. But being on the road, semi-anonymous behind the wheel, provides an unfortunately convenient outlet for that anger. And our Board Certified Houston car accident injury attorneys caution that it just takes a distracted or inconsiderate driver to trigger that rage.
These angry drivers tend to speed more often, take greater risks on the road with your life and with their own, seek revenge against other drivers, weave in and out of other traffic at high sped, and tailgate. In simulation studies, they get more traffic tickets, have more near-misses on the road, and twice as many crashes as other drivers.
The actions of these angry and hostile drivers seem over the top to the rest of us. For instance, just recently in Houston after a minor fender bender accident, the driver of a Nissan threatened the elderly driver if the other vehicle. He reportedly said “You’ll be sorry you gave me your information. I’m going to find you and kill you and your family.” Then he physically attacked the man. The man’s son entered the fray to defend his father, and his defense proved fatal to the attacker. Click the link to learn more about road rage and what triggers it.
Last September’s avalanche of hundreds of new state laws included an expansion of the “Slow Down, Move Over” law relating to emergency vehicles. It was expanded to create fines if drivers didn’t slow down or move over as they passed active TxDOT work zones. Our Houston construction zone accident lawyers note that the law was apparently a reaction to the increased number of TxDOT workers being injured or killed in construction zone crashes due to careless or speeding drivers.
But 84% of those who die in work zone crashes are actually the careless drivers themselves. And a survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 45% of highway work zones had at least one crash occur there.
Just last year in Texas, 17,266 crashes in TxDOT work zones resulted in 115 deaths and 3,522 serious injuries. That doesn’t even begin to account for the myriad of other non-TxDOT work and construction zones that you probably see on your daily drive. In 2012, the FMCSA said that heavy trucks and buses alone contributed to 132 fatal wrecks in work zones. (Dug Begley, blog.chron.com, 4/8/14)
The Houston construction zone accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC understand that sudden slow-downs occur as vehicles reach construction zone bottlenecks. And that these sudden changes in traffic speed often result in distracted, fatigued, or drunken drivers continuing at speed and ramming into the vehicles in front of them. This sometimes forces vehicles off the road and into the workers in the zones. Then secondary wrecks occur as people try to avoid the first accident or rubberneck to get a better look.
TxDOT, federal transportation officials, and contractors all remind drivers to be alert as they enter construction zones. Slow down and drive carefully to avoid workers, cone barriers, and other obstacles, as well as the holes and pavement drop-offs relating to the construction.
All construction zone accidents and the 84% of driver fatalities that occur in these crashes are avoidable with a little extra care as you drive. Our Houston construction zone accident lawyers urge you to be aware and steer clear. Slow down and move over when you come to a work zone. It’s the law; but it’s also just good sense for your own safety. Click the link to read about a fiery fatal Houston truck wreck that may have been related to construction zone traffic dynamics.
Our Houston accident injury lawyers have repeatedly pointed out how Texas leads the nation every year in the number of deaths caused by drunken drivers. But the repeated warnings from us and from many others seem to have no effect. The deadly toll from Texas DWI crashes continues to rise.
For instance, early Sunday morning the drunken driver of a white GMC pickup truck slammed into a disabled vehicle and its passengers on North Sam Houston Parkway in Harris County. One of the passengers in the backseat of the disabled car was killed at the scene. Another woman in the backseat had to be transported to the hospital with serious injuries. The stalled car had its hazard lights, headlights, and parking lights on. One of the vehicle occupants was frantically trying to wave off the approaching pickup truck.
All to no avail. Sergio Sanchez, Jr., who is now indicating his desire to be let off with community service or probation after claiming the life of an innocent victim, rammed the disabled car in his inebriated state. We wish that we could say this was the only example we know of callous drunken drivers ending lives but expecting to continue their own lives without interruption or inconvenience.
Preliminary data from the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), based out of Texas A&M University, indicates that Texas DWI deaths increased from 1,213 in 2011 to 1,296 in 2012 and then to 1,322 in 2013. 61% of these fatal drunken driving wrecks happened on the weekends between Friday afternoon and early Monday morning. TTI also mentioned that people 40 and over are responsible for about half of the Texas DWI fatalities. (Kris Betts, KVUE, by way of KENS TV, 4/12/14)
The next two states that tail Texas with high numbers of alcohol-related crash fatalities are California and Florida. Collectively, Texas and these other two states also have the three fastest-growing populations among the U.S. states. So it’s possible that the percentage of DWI wrecks in relation to the overall population has remained constant in our state over recent years even as actual fatality numbers have grown.
The Houston accident injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC make it their mission to aid innocent victims of needless accidents and to work to improve safety on our Texas roads. If you’ve witnessed or experienced a serious accident injury due to a drunk driver, let us know. We could help you get important witness information to the proper authorities. And our long-term experience providing able legal guidance to injured accident victims could help you understand your legal options after a crash as well as your potential eligibility for a financial recovery for the needless harm you’ve suffered.
Contact us for a free, no obligation initial legal consultation. We can be reached anytime through our online contact form. Or call us direct at 713-807-9500. Let us help you recover.
On Saturday evening, a pickup truck fatally struck a man riding a lawn mower on the service road of the Eastex Freeway in Beaumont. Vernon Boudreaux was the man fatally injured by the crash. The driver of the pickup truck reportedly also received transport to the hospital after the accident.
The mower was pushed into the median between the service road and the Eastex Freeway by the crash. Reportedly, the area where the crash occurred was not well lit, and the lawn mower did not have taillights or reflectors. (Erika Harris, KBMT 12 News, 3/30/14) Our Houston-Beaumont freeway accident lawyers express our sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Mr. Boudreaux.
Some comments on the news sites seem to uncharitably be trying to blame the accident on the victim because his riding mower lacked taillights. But to be fair, one must note that he was rear-ended by a GMC Sierra truck. Had the truck been going slower, might the driver have avoided the accident?
This accident should remind us that it’s vitally important to be alert at all times to the possibility of obstacles and impending crashes on our Texas roadways. Especially at night, unlit vehicles, cargo spilled in the roadway, pedestrians, prior accidents, or darkened potholes in the pavement could all cause sudden crashes.
We all tend to drive too quickly, especially on familiar roads. But crashes of all types, particularly caused by speeding, intoxication, and distracted driving, are on the rise in Texas over the last couple of years.
The Houston-Beaumont freeway accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC urge all drivers to take it slow and watch for potential hazards on the road. The crash injury you avoid by taking extra care may be your own.
Learn the key steps to take in the aftermath of a serious crash. Download your free guide.
Dena McKenzie, 49, of League City has been arrested and charged with a 2nd degree felony in thedeath of bicyclist Kevin Munson. McKenzie reportedly struck and killed Mr. Munson with her vehicle as he was riding his bicycle. Reports say that McKenzie then parked her vehicle right underneath a video surveillance camera in the Waterford Harbor subdivision and proceeded to try and repair the damage caused by hitting Mr. Munson. The Houston bicycle accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC express their sympathies to the family and friends of Kevin Munson.
Our Houston bicycle accident attorneys point out that many hit-and-run crimes go unsolved, but most perpetrators don’t park right underneath a video surveillance camera after committing their fatal acts. Police are crediting social media, which apparently circulated the video, with helping to solve the crime.
Bicyclists and pedestrians suffer disproportionately from hit and run drivers. Their smaller mass is no match for a motor vehicle. And their danger is compounded by the fact that drivers aren’t typically as aware of smaller vehicles or pedestrians on the road as they are of vehicles their own size or larger. However good a driver’s intentions may be and however much they might believe in sharing the road, it remains difficult to adjust one’s vehicle speed and direction, especially in busy traffic, to account for bicycles on the road.
The mayor of Houston just announced an initiative to help provide bicyclists some relief from traffic fears. “Sunday Streets” in Houston will close varying thoroughfares on Sundays to motor vehicle traffic so that cyclists and pedestrians can take in the local neighborhoods safely and without the need to dodge impatient or inattentive drivers. Merchants, who expect greater foot traffic, are pleased at the imitative, as are pedestrians and bicyclists. Expectedly, many drivers are frustrated at the potential delays and detours they will face.
But the Sunday Streets Houston initiative is only the latest open streets program in a successful, worldwide, 30-year string of such initiatives. Currently, there are about 200 other such open streets programs worldwide, and they have worked well. Texas, which is more motor vehicle-centric than most other places, sorely needs such initiatives to encourage cyclists and pedestrians to get out and enjoy what local neighborhoods have to offer. And the program offers them a chance to use the roads without fear of being run down by errant motor vehicles.
The Houston bicycle accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC are pleased that the hit and run driver was caught and that Kevin Munson’s family has a chance to find justice. And we hope that the new Sunday Streets initiative can provide bicyclists safe venues to ride so that such tragedies as Mr. Munson’s death can be avoided in the future. Click the link to read about another tragic hit and run that killed a bicyclist but also ended with the driver’s arrest at Austin’s SXSW festival.
Rashad Owens ran down 26-year-old Sandy Thuy Le, described by a family member as “brilliant” and a “live life to the fullest” sort of person, on Thursday as he tried to flee police. Ms. Le, a Vietnamese-American whose family has seen more than its share of hardship and tragedy, having lost their home to Hurricane Katrina, was the third person to die from the horrific crash at the SXSW festival.
The Houston wrongful death attorneys at Denena Points, PC sadly note that Owens injured at least 21 others. The two most critically injured victims sustained life threatening head injuries. The two victims who died at the scene were identified as 35-year-old Steven Craenmehr from The Netherlands and 27-year-old Jamie West from Austin. Our hearts and prayers are with the family and friends of all of the victims and with those injured victims still struggling to recover after the devastating wreck.
Police documents indicate that Owens initially made an illegal turn and almost ran into a patrol car, at which time police initiated a traffic stop. Then Owens took off, at one point ramming through a police barricade and driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Some witnesses reportedly said they heard Owens revving up his engine before accelerating through the SXSW festival crowd, indicating he might have run down the victims deliberately or without any regard whatsoever for their lives and safety. Police said he also never applied his brakes.
Rashad Owens, whose breathalyzer test showed .114, over the legal limit, apparently fled the police due to outstanding warrants for his arrest and perhaps to avoid being charged with DWI as well. He has since been charged with capital murder and aggravated assault with a motor vehicle and is being held on $3 million bond. Our Houston wrongful death attorneys note that Owens’ blood toxicology report is still pending. (Chris Tomlinson, Associated Press by way of the Houston Chronicle, 3/17/14; and Andra Litton, KTSM News Austin, 3/14/14) Click the link to read more about the deadly driving rampage at SXSW.