A deadly gas tanker accident on a freeway in Fort Worth, Texas, has been blamed on a wrong way driver who was traveling in the opposite direction on the freeway, under the influence of alcohol.  The man has now been charged with intoxication manslaughter.

The 23-year-old motorist was driving a pickup truck the wrong way in the westbound lanes of Interstate 30 in Fort Worth.  Soon, the pickup truck crashed into a gas tanker, and the tanker exploded in flames.  The tanker driver died at the scene of the accident.  The accident occurred on a bridge, and there was some damage to the structure of the bridge from the heat generated by the explosion.

Investigations into the accident have begun.  The driver has admitted to having had at least 10 beers before he began driving.   Investigators are focusing on where the man consumed that amount of alcohol before the accident.  The Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission has begun an investigation into the business where the man purchased his drinks.  They have identified one establishment where the man might have consumed his drinks, and are specifically investigating whether the business was negligent in over serving the man.

As Houston DWI lawyers and Houston Auto Accident Lawyers, we always encourage bars, taverns, pubs, restaurants and other establishments that serve alcohol, to remember that they have a responsibility to do so safely.  For instance, staff at an establishment must not serve alcohol to a patron they can see is too intoxicated to drive.  Failure to do so can result in criminal charges being pressed against the establishment.  For instance, an establishment may face misdemeanor charges for serving alcohol to an intoxicated patron.  Also, an establishment may face a civil lawsuit for negligently serving a known intoxicated person additional drinks under the Texas Dram Shop Act.

According to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, it plans to screen prospective jurors by going through their Facebook profiles and postings. It will use the information gained from these profiles and postings to decide whether the person is qualified to sit on a jury. This newfound trust in social media at the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office is not exactly surprising. The courtrooms in Cameron County were recently upgraded to make them WiFi-compatible. According to the DA’s office, the decision to use Facebook profiles to screen jurors has been made to give prosecutors every tool at their disposal to find a favorable jury.

Currently, prosecutors use smart phones to do a Google search on a prospective juror. The only other information that prosecutors have to work with is the name of the juror, the number of children he has, religion and the employer. Obviously, that is limited information, considering that Facebook offers a wealth of more private and personal information, including musings, thoughts, and pet peeves and so on, that could offer great insight into a jurors mindset.

However, there’s a tiny problem. Facebook profiles can now be made private, giving only some users access to the person’s private and personal information. As Houston criminal defense attorneys, we don’t understand how this tool can be used to its maximum potential if access is as limited as it currently is.

The best idea is to make sure that your Facebook profile is set to private so that only the people that you want to see your personal information can see it.  If your profile is not set to “private,” your personal and private information can be seen and used by all sorts of people including the District Attorney’s office, insurance companies, etc.

Much of the increase in DWI arrests in Texas happened because of a $2 million grant by the Department of Transportation. The grant was used to target high-risk locations for DWI. About 442 out of the total number of arrests this year were made in areas that have a high number of drunk driving accidents.

Not only that, drivers in Texas can expect to be pulled over for intoxicated driving more and more frequently over the next year. The Department of Public Safety plans to use its $2 million grant to increase its DWI enforcement efforts through 2011. There are plans to have more troopers stationed during prominent holidays, including the Fourth Of July, Labor Day and over spring break.

Texas’ strong DWI laws can result in offenders being penalized with heavy fines, community service, probation and a license suspension. As Houston DWI attorneys, we have severely criticized these laws and their lack of effectiveness. For instance, in spite of having some of the harshest anti-DWI laws in the country, Texas continues to have some of the highest drunk driving accident rates in the US. In particular, Harris County and the Houston area have substantial number of fatalities every year in drunk driving accidents. That’s proof that the state’s DWI laws are simply aimed at racking up meaningless arrest numbers, regardless of the impact to innocent drivers.

For instance, if you have eaten soon after drinking, it is likely to impact your reading. Combining alcohol with food seems to result in a lower reading. Besides, the number of alcoholic beverages you have consumed and your weight also determine whether you reach or cross that crucial .08 limit.

We often find that women are affected differently by alcohol, than men. A woman could have the same number of drinks as a man, and still find herself with a higher blood alcohol content (BAC). There are physiological reasons for this. For instance, men have a 61% concentration of water in the body, compared to women who have a water content of around 52%. Therefore, the alcohol in a man’s body is diluted more, and may not show up as much in a test.

Similarly, women generally have a higher body fat concentration than men.  This is important because alcohol is not absorbed in body fat which keeps a high concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream.

A woman’s hormone levels also determine the manner in which the alcohol is absorbed in the body. For instance, hormonal changes around a woman’s menstrual period can cause you to become drunk faster. For example, if you’re on estrogen pills (i.e. birth control pills), you may be intoxicated faster than you know, because these pills impact the ability of the body to eliminate the alcohol. Besides, women have a higher body fat concentration, and because fat is not able to absorb alcohol, women have much higher levels of concentrated alcohol in their system.

Not being aware of these facts, could lead to a situation where a woman is drinking with her male friends and expect to be able to handle the drinks as well as they do.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of factors to consider about how our bodies process and eliminate alcohol.  Reaching the legal limit for alcohol is difficult to determine and you likely won’t know when you have reached a 0.08 BAC. You may be more intoxicated 30 minutes after you stop drinking depending on the amount of alcohol you consumed.  The best policy is not to drive if you have been drinking.  Have a designated driver or take  cab.

The so-called “DWI Lite” law is currently being considered by the Texas Legislature. The law would create a new misdemeanor charge for persons driving with a blood alcohol limit of between .05 and .08. The current maximum legally allowed limit of alcohol in Texas is .08. The law, called Driving While Ability Impaired law, will allow defendants convicted of driving with a blood alcohol limit of between .05 and .08, to plead out of DWI, but still retain a DWI conviction on their records.

Currently, some drivers who have been convicted for DWI in Texas may plead those charges down to a non-DWI related offense, like reckless driving. These people will not have a DWI conviction on their records. However in the case of a conviction under the Driving While Ability Impaired law that is now being considered, offenders will be allowed to plead out of a DWI, but will still have a DWI conviction on their record.

The next time these people commit a DWI offense, prosecutors can enforce tougher penalties. What legislators want to do is to make sure that everyone who has a DWI conviction under the Driving While Ability Impaired law, continues to retain their DWI conviction on their record.

As Houston DWI attorneys, we will be watching these proceedings with interest. There is no doubt that there is huge pressure on legislators to do something – anything – to reduce those drunk driving accident fatality numbers. However, passing legislation that could potentially trap countless numbers of drivers, who may have had a beer or two but can drive safely, is not the answer.

Almost everybody now agrees that the 2001 law, that imposed a license suspension on persons driving under the influence, has been a failure. Motorists who have their licenses suspended can always apply for an occupational license, and can get these quite easily. There are no statistics on whether the 2001 law has been any good at all, but we suspect, the effectiveness has been minimal. Besides, seizing a person’s license as soon as he is arrested actually causes the state to spend millions of dollars on appeals hearings and administrative procedures. This is money that could actually be spent to better use elsewhere.

The rationale behind the 2003 law was using funds generated from a surcharge for DWI to meet a $10 billion revenue shortfall. The aim was to use some of these funds to fund highway programs. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked like that at all. More than 1.2 million Texans have been charged under the new DWI laws, and the result is that most of these people now owe the state money to the tune of approximately $1.1 billion in surcharges. Not only have they not been able to make these exorbitant payments, but they have also had their licenses suspended. Many of them have no choice but to continue to drive without a license. This is a law that has actually made a bad problem even worse.

• If they received plenty of love and affection from their parents
• If their parents kept track of their movements outside the home

Not so surprisingly, children whose parents showered them with love and affection and at the same time, were strict about their movements outside the home, had lower incidences of binge drinking, and had more responsible drinking practices.  Children, whose parents were very loving, but not too strict about activities outside the home, had their risk of binge drinking increase by at least three times.  Children whose parents were strict, but did not show too much affection, had a risk of binge drinking that was twice as high as children whose parents were both loving and strict.

It’s obvious from the study that a combination of love and support, and setting rules and enforcing these, can help prevent alcohol-related excesses among teenage motorists.  That shouldn’t exactly be a surprise to a Houston DWI lawyer or a Houston car accident lawyer, but it’s good to see that what we’ve known all along has been proved scientifically.

It’s also a reminder that although you may not be able to control all the insane things your teenagers are capable of doing, there is much that you can do to prevent them from driving under the influence, binge drinking, and other kinds of dangerous behavior.  Let your teenager know he’s loved and wanted at home, and keep track of what he’s doing outside the home-that seems to be all it takes.

If you or a loved one has been affected by a DWI, contact the Husband & Wife legal team at the Kahn Law Firm by calling 713-226-9900 today for a free, confidential consultation.

The program aims at the development of an in-car breathalyzer that automakers can install in future models of cars. The plan is not to make the breathalyzer mandatory in all cars in the future, but the program administrators and the NHTSA hope that consumers will be interested enough in having the device in their car, to pay extra for it.

As Houston DWI lawyers, we have mixed feelings about an in-car breathalyzer device. The idea is great, and if the device detects alcohol on you, you’re better off not driving anyway. However, there are no guarantees that your breathalyzer reading will match accurately with the reading on the breathalyzers that are used by Houston police officers. In other words, you don’t have any guarantee that you won’t measure at or above the .08 level if you’re pulled over by police. There is therefore no guarantee that that you won’t be charged with DWI, or have to face a Houston license suspension.

As Houston DWI attorneys, we are concerned at the high potential for misuse of these devices, by motorists who mistakenly believe that they are safe to drive when they may not be.

If you have been charged with a DWI or alcohol-related charge, contact the experienced DWI lawyers at the Kahn Law Firm today for a free consultation at 713-226-9900 or toll free at 1-877-226-9940

David Hodges told the Texas Public Safety Commission this week that the surcharge system had failed to work like it was meant to. Under the system, persons who violate certain driving rules, including drunk driving offenders, are slapped with a DPS surcharge. DWI offenders are, by far, the worst affected by such surcharges. They can expect a surcharge of $1,000 annually for three years for the first conviction, and after that, a surcharge of $2,000 annually in cases, where the BAC level was found to be twice the legally allowed limit.

Many DWI offenders tend to be young students, single parents and other persons who don’t earn enough to support such massive surcharges. For these people, the choice is between paying for their daily needs, or paying the surcharge. In fact, a majority of people slapped with a surcharge fail to pay these, in spite of the state establishing collection agencies to collect surcharges.  The estimated 1.2 million people who have not paid their surcharges owe the state of Texas more than $1Billion. As a result of not paying the surcharge, these individuals have lost their drivers licenses.

The system was established in order to raise money for important projects, including highway construction and building of new trauma care centers. None of that has happened as planned. Very little money collected from the surcharge system has gone into construction of trauma care centers.

David Hodges is supporting a modification to the system that would allow persons convicted of DUI to have part of the surcharge waived off, in exchange for getting admitted into an alcohol treatment program. As Houston DWI attorneys, we find this option very encouraging. Often, drunk driving offenders could do with a little encouragement getting into a treatment program. Having a big chunk of their surcharge sliced off in return for getting the treatment they need, could work as the incentive the state hopes it will.

In any case, it makes no sense to hang onto a poorly thought-out system that might have had good intentions, but has suffered from poor implementation. As Houston DWI lawyers, we see that most DWI offenders in Texas can’t afford to cough up $1,000 or $2,000 every year for several years. It therefore, makes little sense to hold on to the system.

The issue of prison alcohol treatment programs was in the spotlight this month after a repeat DWI offender killed two people in a drunk driving accident. The intoxicated motorist John Patrick Barton, had spent much of his prison time idling around, not receiving the kind of alcohol treatment he needed. He had twice spent time in prison for drunk driving, and not received any treatment for his addiction. Not surprisingly, he got out of prison and back into his car, this time with deadly consequences.

Legislators voted to increase spending for prison treatment programs this year, increasing it to $97 million from $36 million in 2007. If the government decides to reduce funding for the program, it would undo a lot of the good work that has already been done in this area. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the increased funding this year for prisoner treatment programs has had a great impact. When the program began, there were estimates that Texas prisons could be overflowing by more than 10,000 prisoners. That has not happened. Because of the success of the treatment program, fewer drunk driving offenders are returning to prison.

In much of the hysteria of that surrounds drunk driving accidents, we can forget that these are people with a very serious addiction they need treatment for. Often, for most of these people, the only place where they can access such specialized treatment is in prison after they have been arrested for drunk driving. Slashing funding for these very essential programs only increases the risk that these DWI offenders will go out, and drive intoxicated again. As Houston DWI attorneys, we hope that better sense prevails and that the alcohol treatment funding remains untouched.

Texas currently leads the nation in alcohol related accidents involving death–1473 in 2008. Additionally, over 6,200 individuals are serving time for DWI related offense in Texas.  A third conviction of DWI is a third degree felony offense and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

If you or a loved one has been charged with DWI, intoxicated assault, intoxicated manslaughter or murder (due to an alcohol-related accident), contact the experienced DWI lawyers at the Kahn Law Firm for a free consultation at 713-226-9900.