You might have read about the failure of Texas lawmakers in Austin to attach a $200 penalty to an updated version of the Texas motor vehicle violations code that they passed on the last day of the past legislative session. Our Texas accident lawyers wonder if that’s the only mistake in the 234-page piece of legislation. The bill has the length of an average novel, but most people would find it far less interesting to read.
I know a lot of folks would love it if lawmakers could make even more mistakes and create even more legal loopholes for us in those voluminous pieces of legislation that they churn out. Maybe they could fail to attach some penalties to violations of the tax code.
Our Texas accident lawyers point out that the loophole they created with this particular motor vehicle oversight in the last legislative session could allow Texans to drive around without license plates on their vehicles until 2013 or later. What if we all decided to do that?
Let’s just look at it from an economic standpoint. Texas would lose money both from initial license plate requests and from the collection of penalties for failure to adhere to the Code. And all of those organizations that receive revenue streams from special “themed” license plates would lose those chunks of revenue. No one would need to buy the vanity license plate holders that one often sees, for instance, on the cars of enthusiastic university alumni.
All I’m pointing out here is that even the smallest legislative mistake can have large consequences. And temporarily dried-up revenue streams might be the least of our worries and injuries from this mistake.
Certainly this failure of Texas lawmakers could create problems for law enforcement, and not just because Texas couldn’t collect the omitted $200 fine for the violation. Maybe our Texas governor, realizing the snowballing cascade of law enforcement problems that could arise because of this one, simple oversight, might feel pressured to call a special legislative session to correct the problem.
One wonders who was actually responsible for the mistake. As a mistake, it’s simple, but strategic. Our Texas accident lawyers see numerous possibilities waiting to born from this one, simple mistake. We fear that so do many other people – people unconstrained by oaths taken as officers of the court.