Last week a 14 year old girl was killed and her brother and sister severely injured when a 23 year old college student ran into the rear of their stopped car. He was drunk.
Also last week a jury returned a $21.8 million dollar verdict against a A&M senior for killing a 21 year old Baylor student. The driver was texting at time and crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic.
Last month we obtained a $3.2 million dollar judgment against a drunk driver in Brazoria County.
Also last month a friend and fellow soccer referee was paralyzed when a 19 year old girl ran a stop sign and crashed into him. It is unknown at this time why she did not stop.
Every day we hear of senseless death and injuries being caused by people driving drunk or texting. The criminal courts prosecute them. Our firm sues the people that cause these wrecks and injuries so that the families can pay their bills and get some compensate for the damage caused, but what else can be done?
I would like to see anyone who is convicted of drunk driving or texting while driving have to spend at least 3 days helping one of the people hurt by those type of actions. That would include cleaning bed pans, changing sheets, feeding them, cleaning the grave site or whatever the family needs. Make their actions real. Even if they were lucky enough not to hurt or kill anyone they should see what can and does happen. I would also require them to spend a visiting hour with a prisoner who was convicted of injuring or killing someone while drunk or texting so they have a real appreciation for what could happen to them. This should be required before any probation, etc., but that’s just me.
What do you think?
281-565-5900
How about an automatic 10 year license suspension for drunk driving/texting?
That would make an impression.
You touched on examples in which someone injured others while driving under the influence, or texting. Unfortunately, I would suspect that there are dramatically more cases in which young lives were lost in single car accidents because the driver was distracted by cell phone use.
I’ve heard rumors of programs for the iPhone that limit phone functions when the built-in GPS senses motion. Such applications would not be a perfect answer though, because they could be disabled or would also affect passengers in a car.
Education and behavior modification is the key. I have heard that there is an education program in the high schools called “The Last Text” (or similar), in which police officers visit schools to discuss the last text messages that were sent by people who died in car accidents. As one would expect, the last text messages sent were trivial, and certainly not worth a life!
Something has to be done about texing . I believe its more serious than Drinking and driving. Just walking around the loop in our neigborhood last week I observerd 3 different young girls texing while driving in a matter of 10 minutes. Scarey!!!!