Baytown, TX — Police reported on Friday morning that alcohol might’ve been a factor in a one-car accident that happened in Baytown overnight. They said that a man in a silver car or SUV crossover was badly injured after he crashed into a sign off Main Street early Friday, April 16, 2015.
This happened at the corner of Main and Lee.
The driver of the silver car, an unnamed man, was apparently trying to execute a turn at the aforementioned intersection when he drove into a parking lot and hit both a parked car and a business’s sign.
The accident left the man trapped inside his car and he was badly injured. At the last update, paramedics had taken him via CareFlite to a hospital for his injuries. Allegedly, alcohol could have been a factor, but that’s not something the police have confirmed, just something the news theorized.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
Folks, I want to talk a bit about alcohol-related in Texas, because we have the most of them out of the entire country each year. Most people like to think that if someone gets drunk and crashes their car, they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves. In reality, that’s only half the story.
Bars and other licensed places that sell alcohol have to abide by certain rules and they actually have a legal duty to serve alcohol in a responsible way. Texas law demands that bars not sell alcohol to minors or people who are obviously intoxicated. Why? The idea is that bars can be held responsible for their contribution to a drunk driving wreck just like a drunk driver can be charged.
If this driver had been drinking, and I’m not implying that he had been (clearly there’s not enough information to determine that), then where had he been in the hours leading up to the wreck? If he was under the influence and had been over-served at a bar, then they may have some fault here as well. And that’s not just my opinion, that’s what the law says.
Like I mentioned earlier, people tend to think that accidents where a drunk driver hurts themselves are all the driver’s fault. In reality, though, it’s like both the driver and the bar committed wrong together. Too often, bars look at customers as a means to make a profit, forgetting that they have a legal duty to minimize the risk of getting them intoxicated, thus endangering everyone else on the road.
— Grossman Law Offices
