15 Texas families who have lost loved ones to motor vehicle accidents involving texting while driving appeared at a briefing at the Texas capitol building to show their support for the Alex Brown Memorial Act. The bill prohibits drivers from using a cell phone to type, read or send a text message while operating their vehicle, though it would allow a driver to text if they were outside a travel lane and the vehicle was stopped. Fines would range from $25 to $200. The proposed ban on texting and driving would be statewide. There are already some localized bans on using cell phones in school zones. This is the fourth time that Senator Judith Zaffirini has proposed the ban.
Texas Dept. of Transportation data shows that cell phone use causing distracted driving killed 52 people in Texas in 2014, and in 2013 there were 459 fatal crashes involving a distracted driver, of which 56 deaths were caused by cell phone use.
A bill previously passed both chambers in 2011 but was vetoed by Governor Rick Perry. Critics of the proposed ban say that it won’t be effective and people will text and drive anyway. That’s not a very effective argument. You could say the same about speed limits on roads: why have speed limits when people are going to speed anyway. If speed limits were removed some people would drive dangerously fast because there would be no consequences to doing so. Perhaps if there was a consequence to driving distracted by texting, less people would do it and we’d all be safer.
A driver’s loss of control of his/her vehicle resulted in a single car accident on S. Brasewood at S. Rice early this morning. Police say the vehicle was heading eastbound when it left the roadway, traveled through the yards of several private homes, then crashed into a tree. The passenger was pronounced dead at the scene; police think excessive speed and alcohol were factors in causing the crash.
Update: the driver, 23-year old David Daniel Rodriguez, has reportedly been charged with a criminal offense in connection with the crash.
This morning's fatal crash
A man driving a newer model BMW SUV struck two male pedestrians outside a Houston bar, then tried to flee the scene of an accident. A group of people kept the man there until the police arrived; he failed sobriety testing and was arrested. He will be charged with DWI and failure to stop and render aid. On man was treated at the scene and the other, a 57-year old, was taken to Memorial Hermann in serious condition. The location of the accident was Fairview at Congress near downtown Houston.
2 pedestrians hurt by alleged drunk driver
A two vehicle collision along the Beaumont Highway near the San Jacinto River killed two children last night. The victims are two boys ages 6 and 11; there were four occupants in one of the vehicle, including the two boys. The other occupants were taken by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Medical Center. Police are investigating the case of the accident according to Channel 2, but KHOU’s report on the accident states the driver of a car is at fault for leaving his lane and striking the oncoming SUV head-on.
Update: the young boys who died in the accident have been identified as Brian Figley (11) and Andrew Figley (6). Their mother Laura Figley remains hospitalized with broken arms and a broken leg. KHOU’s story explains how the boys’ father Raymond received a call that his ex wife and sons had been involved in a serious accident, and how when he asked deputies where his sons were they wouldn’t tell him. He learned the worst when he rushed to the accident scene. KHOU’s story also sheds some more light on the cause of the accident, saying 19-year old driver Lyle Buckner was attempting to pass another vehicle in a careless manner when the tragedy happened.
Accident scene
Accident scene
For the second day in a row there has been a major head-on crash on a Houston freeway caused by a wrong-way driver. The crash happened on the Eastex Freeway before Cavalcade Street around 3:00 a.m. Tuesday January 13th. The wrong way driver, a male, was heading northbound in the southbound lanes at the time of the collision. The victim was seriously injured and transported to Ben Taub. Police are investigating to determine whether alcohol was a factor, as it very frequently is in wrong-way accidents.
Scene of this morning's wrong-way accident
A major car accident on Houston North Freeway totaled several cars last night and sent a number of people to the hospital. According to KHOU’s reporter at around 11:30 p.m. a blue-colored Toyota Scion was stopped in the travel lanes, occupied by two men. An SUV approaching from behind was unable to stop in time and rear-ended the Scion. The freeway was closed down as emergency crews worked the accident, which of course caused traffic to back up and that resulted in another accident at West Mount Houston, when an SUV driver didn’t see the stopped traffic until it was too late, hitting the divider wall and several vehicles. A woman was extracted from a seriously damaged Toyota (pictured below); fortunately her injuries were not life-threatening.
A woman was cut from this Toyota by the fire dept.
Injured driver
SUV damaged in last nights chain reaction accident
Early this morning a Chevrolet Suburban left the roadway on the Southwest Freeway feeder road, hitting a metal light pole and bursting into flames. Three occupants of the vehicle died in the crash. Police say the vehicle flipped over before hitting the pole near Sands Point Drive around 1:45 a.m. It appears that excessive speed was a factor in causing the crash.
A head-on collision on Central Street in Houston has left a 14-year old boy dead and a 17-year old boy charged with driving while intoxicated. The 14-year old was sitting in the front passenger seat of pickup truck westbound on Central near Lawndale; an eastbound minivan began drifting over the center lane into oncoming traffic, and the driver attempted to correct back into his lane. The 17-year old driver of the pickup truck had already begun to react and was trying to go around the minivan when the head-on crash occurred. The 17-year old driving the pickup was charged with driving while intoxicated, though it does not appear he was responsible for the crash.
Photo credit: Ch 2 News
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Six people were injured in a two vehicle car accident yesterday, three of them were life flighted to Memorial Hermann. The crash happened on Eldridge Parkway at Guernsey Drive, according to Channel 2, when a black-colored Nissan Murano SUV pulled out in front of another SUV occupied by three teenagers. The woman driving the Murano and two passengers were transported via life flight, the teenagers by ground ambulance.
