Wrecker driver injured in accident on Highway 288 with HPD officer
A HPD patrol officer was involved in a collision with a wrecker truck driver at Highway 288 and Old Spanish Trail. The officer and the wrecker driver were both injured. The officer had pulled over on Highway 288 to help search for a prisoner, and when the officer got back in her police cruiser and tried to merge onto the roadway her clipboard got stuck in the steering wheel and she ran into an unattended wrecker truck. The wrecker truck was then pushed forward into the wrecker driver who was standing nearby. KHOU’s story is here. Channel 2’s story is here, and reports the scene of the accident as Highway 288 and Yellowstone.
Under the Texas Tort Claims Act (TTCA), there are limits placed on the amount of financial liability of a unit of government for death or injury caused to another person. Depending on the type of governmental unit, the maximum damages that may be recovered in a claim for personal injury or death may be either $100,000 or $250,000. In March 2009 a lady named Leigh Boone was involved in an intersection collision between two City of Houston fire trucks in the Montrose area. Ms. Boone was standing at the corner of the intersection with her bicycle when one of the crashed fire trucks rolled onto her. She died after spending two weeks in the hospital. The City of Houston settled with Ms. Boone’s family members for $225,000, just under the $250,000 maximum damages that can be recovered from a municipality under the TTCA.