Houston Police Should Take a Stronger Approach to Possible DWI Crimes

News reports mention that the Houston Police Department has a response to a recent accident scene under review. The review comes in response to witness allegations that a driver who ran over a stop sign, smashed into a parked vehicle, and then ran into a tree smelled of alcohol and had empty beer cans littering the inside of his Ford F-250 pickup truck. The crash occurred Sunday night in a NW Houston residential neighborhood near the 7500 block of Maple Tree Drive.

Our Houston car crash lawyers read that residents of the neighborhood claim the HPD officers and HFD paramedics responded to the scene, but that none of these personnel checked out the driver of the Ford F-250 pickup truck. The residents say that the driver of the pickup truck was permitted to leave the scene without receiving a ticket or even taking a field sobriety test.

An HPD spokesperson said that the incident is still undergoing review and that traffic citations could still be issued. The spokesperson stated that the investigation so far indicates that the driver suffered from an unknown type of medical episode.

If neighborhood residents are correct, and the driver clearly smelled of alcohol and had a truck containing several empty beer cans, then we Houston car crash lawyers believe that the HPD was remiss in its duty to administer a field sobriety test. If the driver was drunk, but was permitted to leave the scene of the accident, he could have caused further wrecks afterwards along with serious injuries or fatalities.

Drunk driving and drugged driving represent two dangerous and growing problems in Harris County. Just today, our Houston car crash lawyers read another news account of a possibly drunk driver smacking a vehicle right into a law enforcement patrol truck. Earlier this week, we came across accounts of two other drunk drivers crashing into police vehicles.

It seems almost like a trend. In light of the recent wave of drunks smashing into police vehicles, police might take note and crack down more severely on DWI crimes. A stronger approach to DWI crimes could save us all from the dangers of these drunken drivers and the wrecks they cause. It seems a stricter approach to DWI crimes could also save our law enforcement departments substantial vehicle repair costs and medical expenses.