San Antonio, TX — Police said that a man who crashed his car into a truck moments after leaving a local bar in San Antonio was hospitalized with serious facial injuries. His name wasn’t released, but authorities said that he was driving a Corvette and had just left Fatso’s Sports Garden at Bandera Road and Sunshine Drive.
This happened on Sunday night, August 24, 2014. Witnesses to the accident said that a man exited Fatso’s Sports Garden that night and got into a Corvette, then pulled out of the parking lot onto Bandera Road and began driving erratically.
The man’s Corvette swerved into the opposite lanes of traffic and crashed head-on into a pickup truck. Though nobody in the truck was badly injured, the driver of the Corvette suffered some very serious facial injuries and was taken to a hospital.
Police think he was under the influence of alcohol, but that hasn’t been determined yet.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary:
Since this driver was literally witnessed walking from the bar to his car, then crashing his car, I think it’s safe to assume that if any alcohol was involved, it was served and consumed at Fatso’s Sports Garden. Now, I know it’s tempting to blame this entire accident on the driver because, after all, it was his decision to drink alcohol (if that was even a factor). But, is that really fair? If someone is selling a substance that’s known to lower your inhibitions and hamper your ability to make decisions, then shouldn’t they have some rules to follow? The answer is that, yes, they do. Anyone with a license to sell alcohol (bars, restaurants, pubs, etc) is required by Texas law and the TABC to serve alcohol in a safe manner. That means not providing alcohol to anyone who is obviously intoxicated and that also means making sure nobody is consuming enough alcohol to be that dangerous.
Certainly, someone who chooses to drink and drive is responsible for their own actions. But so are the people who served the alcohol. They have a duty to make sure that they’re within the law and that they’re not creating a dangerous situation. I’d say that serving someone so much alcohol that they literally wreck their car a few seconds after leaving your bar is pretty negligent and cringeworthy, but I’d be curious to know if the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commision’s officers feel the same way.
— Grossman Law Offices
