Texas highway accident attorneys note that the Eagle Ford Shale development, underlying several formerly somewhat sleepy counties in Southeast Texas, is now the center of Texas’ economic boom. The shale deposit is the center of fracking activity to extract oil and gas. And fracking requires lots of water.
So roads in the area that formerly saw traffic of one or two trucks a day, now see up to 500 commercial trucks. Many of those trucks are heavily loaded with water, gas, or drilling equipment.
And long shifts in the oil fields mean that many of the drivers behind the wheels of those trucks are too fatigued to pay proper attention to the roads as they drive. Our Texas highway accident attorneys point out that the rate of traffic fatalities has increased by a factor of 12 in Karnes County since 2008, when the Eagle Ford Shale development really took off there. And LaSalle County has experienced a 418% increase in crashes related to commercial vehicle traffic since that time. McMullen County has suffered a 1,050% increase in that same time period. (Source: Hailey Konnath, San Antonio Express-News, 7/9/2012)
Some of the increase in vehicle crashes and fatalities gets blamed on the poor conditions of roads worn down by the unexpected and massive increase in the loads they must carry. Others blame the increase in the enormous number of oil industry trucks or on the hurry of industry workers as they drive.
Local government officials, the oil and gas industries, concerned locals, and traffic authorities are all scrambling to find solutions to the problems of increased crash injuries and deaths tied to the economic boom in the Eagle Ford Shale. Many local residents fear for their lives if they have to take to the roads. And one stretch of highway has even earned the nickname “death trap” from the sharp increase in traffic fatalities.
But local residents aren’t the only ones suffering the effect of the rise in fatal traffic accident statistics. Recent years have seen highway traffic crashes rise to the number one spot as a cause of death for oil field workers. Learn more about the dangerous occupation of oil field drilling in the linked article by our Texas highway accident attorneys.
If you’ve been injured in a highway crash, contact our Texas highway accident attorneys for a free and confidential legal consultation to discuss your case. We’ve been helping injured victims successfully obtain full financial recoveries for their harm for more than 14 years.