Accident & Injury Law in Texas

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Yikes!  I’m not the only one.  Texas families saw their health insurance premiums soar 40 percent in five years - 10 times faster then their incomes increased, according to a report released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, N.J., a national foundation that promotes health care improvement.

The foundations report, “Squeezed: How Costs for Insuring Families are Outpacing Income” was prepared by University of Minnesota researchers, did not study why premiums increase almost 30 percent nationally to an average of $10,728 in 2005.  In Texas, premiums jumped to an average $11,533.

Nationally, Texas ranked third behind Oklahoma and Idaho in premium increases from 2001 to 2005.  At the same time, Texas ranked No. 1 in the percentage of residents without insurance.  In 2005-2006 that figure was 27 percent and the state had 5.5 million of the nation’s 47 million uninsured people.

People without coverage often get expensive emergency room care, and those costs get passed on as higher premiums to people with insurance, says Regina Rogoff, the executive director of People’s Community Clinic which treats uninsured people in the Austin area.

Taxpayers also share the tab when hospitals and governments do more to help the uninsured according to Clarke Heidrick, a member of the Travis County Healthcare District Board.

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A new state program will allow friends and relatives of people killed in drunken driving wrecks in Texas to buy memorial signs that will be placed near the crash site for a year.

The $300 signs will be 42 inches high and 48 inches wide, with a blue background and white lettering and have the victim’s name, the wreck date, and the phrases “Please Don’t Drink and Drive” and “In Memory of” on them.  The $300 covers the cost of making the sign and putting it up which will be placed as close as possible to the crash site.

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas had more than 1,670 fatalities in 2006 that involved drivers who were under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The program applies only to people killed by impaired drivers.  Impaired drivers who were killed in a crash will not be eligible.  Also, to be eligible, the victims must have been killed on a state-maintained road.

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A recent article in the Austin American Statesman reveals that teen drivers in rural areas are at a greater risk of being involved in an accident that their urban counterparts. The article was based on a study by the Texas Transportation Institute released Tuesday which shows, among other things that rural teens are more likely to:

• Drive in a car packed with several other teens
• Drive after 10 p.m.
• Talk on a cell phone or send text messages while driving
• Drive without a seat belt
• Speed and street race

This may be why 65 percent of teen driving fatalities in 2006 occurred on rural roads. According to Russell Henk of the transportation institute, higher speed limits on most rural roads, lack of congestion, and a feeling that “nothing is going to happen to me” creates a higher danger risk for urban teens.

Texas leads the nation in auto fatalities and about 500 Texas teens die in crashes each year. Teen drivers are also involved in 22 percent of the state’s car crashes.

The study by the Texas Transportation Institute was based on the driving habits of more than 4,400 teens from 17 high schools across the state and included an analysis of teens’ perceptions of factors that cause car wrecks and included the following findings:

• Fewer than 1 percent of Texas teens understand that driving at night is unsafe even though it is the most dangerous activity a driver can engage in.
• Only a third of teens recognize the dangers of driving while talking or texting on a cell phone.
• Rural teens were far less likely to name alcohol or drugs as a factor behind crashes than urban teens.
• Rural teens were three times more likely to get speeding tickets
• Rural teens were twice as likely to drive while using cell phones.

Technorati Tags: teen, driving, rural, risky behaviour

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According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Texas led the country last year in the number of drunken driving fatalities with 1,354 drunken driving deaths last year (up from 34 in 2005).

Texas tied Arizona and Kansas for the largest increase in the number of fatalities while Utah, Kansas, and Iowa had the largest percentage increase.

According to the Department of Transportation, there were 13,470 deaths nationwide involving drivers or motorcycle operators with blood-alcohol levels of .08 or higher last year, the legal limit for adults in the United States. That was a slight drop from the 13,582 fatalities the year before.

Twenty-two states had more drunken driving fatalities than in the previous year while the numbers fell in 28 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Florida saw the largest drop in the number of drunken driving deaths, down 147 from its 2005 total of 1,106.

Federal transportation officials announced the statistics as they unveiled an $11 million nationwide advertising campaign against drunk driving, under the slogan “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” They also announced plans to launch a national law enforcement crackdown.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 97 percent of Americans view drunk driving as a threat to their families and themselves.

Some of the worst accidents I have seen or heard of involve drunk drivers and it is unbelievable that over 13,000 people have to pay the ultimate price for another person’s poor decisions.

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