VICTORIA, TX — A two-vehicle crash killed one woman in Victoria, Texas on Thursday, February 27th, 2014, according to the article from The Victoria Advocate.
Police have said that they have reason to believe one person was killed when the car they were driving was hit by a vehicle that authorities think ran a red-light during an alleged police pursuit while driving through the intersection of Houston Highway and North Ben Wilson Street.
Scene of the Accident
One person was taken by EMS responders to a nearby hospital for the treatment of unspecified injuries sustained in the accident.
The driver of the vehicle is currently being evaluated for the possibility of drunk driving in connection with the accident.
Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety is currently investigating the accident.
Commentary:
The news report indicates that alcohol may have been a factor in this accident, and just in case it is, people need to know how this kind of accident differs than a run-of-the mill crash. In the State of Texas, we have a set of liquor laws that oversee the responsible sale and service of alcohol, we in the legal industry call these ‘dram shop laws’. The signs you see posted in bar windows is a promise to the state to serve alcohol safely and responsibly. If a driver had come from a bar before an accident, and that bar is found to have served that person too much to drink, or served them alcohol when they were already clearly drunk, the bar could bear liability if the facts line up. These laws were put on the books to protect the public, and when they are broken, accidents like this can and often do happen. While we can jail the drunk drivers, the bars that fuel them often go overlooked in the grand scheme of things. If bars and drunk drivers were punished equally in the eyes of the law, there would be far less accidents like this to report on.
–Grossman Law Offices
