Fort Worth, TX — Five people were rushed to a hospital after an accident in Fort Worth, TX after a wreck this past Wednesday night, June 24, 2015. Police haven’t released very many details, but believe that alcohol was a factor here.
They said that a Toyota Corolla was headed southbound along Beach Street last night around 9:00 p.m. when the driver lost control near Lancaster Avenue.
The Toyota veered into the oncoming lanes of traffic and collided head-on with a Dodge truck. Three men inside the Corolla were injured, including one backseat passenger who was ejected by the impact.
Two others in the Dodge truck were also injured.
Police said that all five were transported to a hospital, but the driver of the Toyota Corolla (who wasn’t named) is facing DWI charges. They suspect he was under the influence of alcohol at the time.
Map of the Accident
Commentary:
There are a couple of things to consider here, since alcohol is allegedly involved. 1) How much alcohol had been consumed? 2) Where did it come from?
The reasons those questions are important have everything to do with something called Dram Shop Law, which regulates the way bars sell alcohol to customers. The general idea is that while it’s unsafe and irresponsible (not to mention illegal) to drink and drive, it’s equally dangerous for a bar to serve someone so much alcohol that they would drive drunk and cause an accident.
Essentially, both the drunk driver and the bar that over-served them are at fault for any kind of accident the driver gets into, as far as Texas law is concerned. This is a very simple explanation of the law, and there are many complexities and special circumstances to be considered. But you get the basic idea: it’s not only illegal to people to get drunk and cause accidents, the bars that serve them are in the wrong as well if they choose to over-serve and get customers drunk.
That is why the two questions I asked at the beginning are so important. The police rarely look into that kind of thing, but if a bar had been involved here and the driver had been drinking there before the wreck, then depending on how much the driver had been served, the bar might bear some liability for this wreck.
— Grossman Law Offices
