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Accident Liability
Given how much of southern Texas is located on a floodplain, it is not at all surprising that roads around New Braunfels and San Antonio flood with relative frequency. Recently, flooding was out of control to the point where it required the closure of I-10 into Louisiana, which raises several questions, especially if you were one of the motorists inconvenienced by I-10’s closure. Roads do flood – is anyone responsible? The driver of the car that hit yours? The municipality tasked with maintaining the roads? While it does depend on the situation, this can be a difficult question to answer.
The Driver
As one might imagine, more often than not it is the other driver involved in your accident who is likeliest to be held liable. However, in an accident involving hazardous road conditions, it can be difficult to pinpoint how much of your injuries are due to alleged negligence of the other driver, and how much is due to the road. It may be possible to get into issues of complex causation – in other words, to establish that the accident had more than one cause, and without both factors, it may not have occurred.
Three Dead after Truck Hits Group Helping Injured Motorcyclist
In late July, three men were killed on a frontage road of I-35 after being hit by a truck while stopping to assist a motorcyclist who had fallen off his vehicle. The motorcyclist and his nephew and one other person died at the scene, while another person was injured. The truck driver stopped to offer help, and while he is not currently facing criminal charges, it is not a leap to assume that a wrongful death civil suit may be filed by the motorcyclist’s family and/or next of kin. Wrongful death is one of the leading causes of action that comes from auto accidents, and Texas has very specific laws surrounding these suits.
Time and Plaintiffs Are Limited
One important thing to remember about wrongful death cases in Texas is that the statute of limitations is quite short. You only have two years from the date of the person’s passing to bring the appropriate wrongful death suit – while this may seem like a long time, it is definitely not, especially when one considers the time that will be spent obtaining records and taking care of the deceased person’s estate. This may seem unreasonable, but after too long, memories begin to fade. Statutes of limitations are meant to curb the tendency of human beings to devolve into he-said, she-said arguments – if a case must be tried when memories are fresh, it will likely be handled more quickly and appropriately.
One-Fifth of Deadliest Highways in Texas Are Close to Home
In July 2017, a study was released on the deadliest highway in Texas, based on multiple factors, including fatality frequency and the type of highway. The findings were, to those familiar with Texas roads, not all that surprising; many of the most dangerous roads could be found in small-to-middling towns – the deadliest highway in the state according to the study was IH 69, specifically the stretch at mile point 170, in Edinburg, TX – but what was noteworthy to many was the concentration of deadly stretches of highway found in the San Antonio-to-Austin corridor. Almost 30 percent of the roads cited in the study can be found in one or both cities. While the odds of an accident are still comparatively low overall, it is worth noting that if you are a frequent driver on any of these roads, you may wish to be more careful.
Why Such High Body Counts?
If one looks at the demographics and makeup of both San Antonio and Austin, one can see similarities, at least in terms of traffic patterns. Both metro areas have a high fatality rate spread fairly evenly throughout the city limits (as opposed to occurring in isolated areas), as San Antonio has ten deadly stretches of highway and Austin has seven. Both metro areas are also noticeably congested – in studies of the busiest U.S. cities, San Antonio and Austin both showed similar congestion levels and amount of rush hours. It is plausible to draw the inference that cities laid out in the same way as these two, congestion almost certainly contributes to impatient and reckless driving, which boosts fatality counts.
Pedestrian Struck and Killed On I-35
The first weekend in August was deadly on I-35, headed through Austin. Around 9:30 PM on August 3, 2017, a young woman in her thirties was struck and killed while crossing the road. Her identity was not released, nor was her motivation for being on the road at the time made clear. While highway deaths are sadly an everyday occurrence, it is somewhat more unusual for a pedestrian to be crossing an interstate highway. It gives rise to good questions about the frequency of pedestrian accidents in and around Austin, and what to do if you find yourself in such a situation.
The Duty of Care in Negligence Law
When an auto accident results in injury or death, the person affected (or their loved ones) may be able to bring suit under a theory of negligence law or wrongful death, which is essentially a subset of negligence law. Either way, one central question that must be asked is whether the defendant in the suit owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, and if so, did they breach it. There are four tenets to any negligence case – the existence of a duty, the alleged breach of that duty, a showing that the defendant’s conduct caused the accident, and a showing of tangible harm suffered by the plaintiff. If no duty of care exists, the rest of the criteria are moot.
T-Bone Collisions
On July 14, 2017, one man was killed and one woman critically injured when her pickup t-boned a Chevrolet in Garfield, off Texas 71. The woman was taken to South Austin Medical Center, while four other passengers were uninjured. While this accident claimed only one life, T-bone or broadside accidents are among the most dangerous one can experience. Understanding what might happen in such an accident may help you avoid the worst of one in the future.
Injuries and Fatalities Are High
As one might imagine, injuries and deaths in T-bone accidents are somewhat more frequent than in other types of accidents. In a front or rear-end collision, there are several feet of metal and crumple zones to protect the driver and passengers, but there is almost nothing to protect you in a side collision besides the door, which is mere sheet metal. Seat belts do very little to help, either, since the force of the accident is not hitting the person head on.
Truck Driver Fatigue a Common Cause of Accidents
In Texas, it is all too common to see big rigs on freeways and main roads, and if one grows up in New Braunfels or San Antonio, learning how to exist on the road with them is a part of learning how to drive. However, when someone does not know what they are doing, 18-wheelers become much more dangerous, and that danger is made even more real if the truck driver is not at their best. If you have been in an accident with an 18-wheeler, understanding what is and is not appropriate for their drivers can give you insight you can use in your case for compensation.
National Statistics Show a Trend
A Public Health Policy paper from 2013 shows that underreporting of hours and maladjusted sleep schedules are common in the trucking industry. Almost 20 percent of drivers surveyed admitted to falling asleep at the wheel one or more times in the previous month. While rules for driver safety do exist, having been promulgated in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations, they are often ignored, and most of the reasons are economic. Payment schedules are quite low, and delivery timetables are tight.
Two Dead, One Injured in Austin Motorcycle Crash
In early June 2017, , a man was killed when his motorcycle was hit by a truck on FM 973 in Austin. His passenger was injured, but her unborn child did not survive. The driver of the truck that hit him was later charged with intoxication manslaughter, which may rise to two counts after the fetus was declared no longer viable. This is a sad yet common story in Texas, but it nevertheless reflects just how dangerous motorcycling can be even when one does everything right.
Statistics Show Significantly Higher Risks
The most recent available data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows a slight uptick in motorcyclist deaths from the previous year at 4,693. That constitutes approximately 13 percent of all traffic fatalities in 2015, which is more than double the amount seen a decade before. One notable trend is that almost two-thirds of the fatalities were sustained in multiple-vehicle crashes, which is slightly higher than previous years, but roughly in keeping with trends.
Disabled Woman Struck by Hit and Run Driver
On the night of July 3, 2017, a disabled woman in an electric wheelchair was struck by a car while crossing Blanco Road in San Antonio. The driver did not stop to assist the woman, driving away and leaving her in the street. As of this writing, she is still hospitalized, but the important thing to note is that hit-and-run accidents do happen, and they differ significantly from the average automobile accident, not least of all because a hit and run may lead to criminal charges as well as civil liability.
Hit and Run Penalties Are Stiff
Because Texas is so vast and has so many roads and drivers, its laws tend to treat traffic laws and breaking them as fairly serious offenses. Indeed, the Texas law that deals with leaving the scene of an accident (also sometimes known as failure to stop and render aid or FRSA) was strengthened in 2014, taking FRSA from a third-degree felony to a second-degree felony, increasing the potential jail time and fine, if the driver was operating under the influence. There is no way to tell if the Blanco Road driver was intoxicated, but it is a factor one must consider.
Venomous Snakes Loose after I-35 Crash
Every so often, an auto accident will occur on Texas roads that makes one marvel at just how much of life can be chalked up to chance. While it is a worthy question to examine in terms of philosophy, though, it can be even more relevant in terms of law. Almost 30 venomous snakes got loose on I-35 after a herpetologist’s car lost a tire and rolled into the access road, trapping the driver and a young child inside. All but seven were recovered, but those seven are still loose, as of this writing. It raises interesting legal questions.
The Concept of Foreseeability
Automobile accidents are usually tried in civil negligence law, meaning that a plaintiff is seeking monetary damages for the harm they have suffered. Negligence law has four pillars that must be established before a defendant can be held liable: duty, breach of that duty, proximate cause, and a showing of harm. In short, a defendant can be held liable if a plaintiff can show that they were owed a duty of care and it was breached (that is, that a reasonable person would not have acted in the same manner as the defendant) by the defendant’s conduct, which caused harm.
No Wrongful Death Suit Against Perpetrator of March Bus Crash
On March 30, a shuttle bus carrying members of the First Baptist Church of New Braunfels was hit head-on by a pickup truck on US 83, killing 12 passengers and the bus driver. A 13th passenger later died of their injuries. The pickup driver, by comparison, was hospitalized but recovered. Two months later, on June 30, he was charged with intoxication manslaughter, as well as normal manslaughter. No civil liability has been alleged, and no suit for wrongful death or any other valid cause of action has been brought. Yet in many auto accidents, especially those where a death occurs, wrongful death litigation is often begun concurrently or set to begin directly before the commencement of a criminal trial.
Civil vs. Criminal Law
In a lot of cases, especially in such an extensive and tragic accident as the First Baptist bus crash, a civil action is begun, or at least filed, around the same time as any criminal charges. While criminal charges are fairly self-explanatory, civil claims are a bit more difficult to define. Under Texas law, a civil action is brought to hold a person liable, usually by alleging negligence on their part (as opposed to finding someone guilty of a crime and showing they broke the law). Civil actions do not result in jail time, but they can result in significant fines and other punishments aimed at making the plaintiff “whole” – that is, to redress the wrong done to them as fully as possible. Most civil cases that are decided in the plaintiff’s favor result in monetary damages being paid by the defendant or defendants.
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