The Houston Chronicle reports a furor over a new Texas law, taking effect Sept. 1, which allows police to get a blood sample without a warrant in certain cases of suspected drunk driving.

Some consider it an outrage, violating civil liberties, the Constitution and perhaps apple pie and the flag. Others protest it will create a logjam at blood testing centers used by authorities in Houston, Harris County and elsewhere. In other words, it will be too time-consuming to test each potential DUI offender, so why not just let them go if they refuse a breathalyzer test?

Meanwhile, criminal defense attorneys worry that law enforcers will “run amok” if given such leeway.

All of these alarmists seem to disregard what’s truly alarming: Drunk drivers continue to wreak unspeakable carnage on America’s streets and highways. Since 1982, more than half a million innocent Americans have been killed in car accidents by drunk drivers, including many drunks who were repeat offenders. Think about it: More than half a million — dead — because people drove drunk.

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Who knew?
Turns out the federal government did six years ago. When it said nothing, thousands of Americans lost their lives. Others were seriously injured. And the nation is now stuck with a “serious and growing threat on America’s roadways.”
That’s the nutshell version of a shocking story in the July 21, 2009 edition of The New York Times about government suppression of vital safety information. The news does not surprise personal injury attorney Jim Adler who has long railed against government agencies that neglect their duty to protect the public.

“That’s why we call ourselves safety lawyers,” Adler said. “Remember the Ford Pinto and its exploding gas tank that killed so many in accidents? After Ford got sued by personal injury lawyers who won big settlements for victims, it redesigned that killer car. The same goes for those knobs on dashboards that used to seriously injure people in accidents. We got rid of them too. Now one of the biggest dangers on the road is caused by cell phones.”

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In America, the number of workplace deaths has declined — but not for Hispanics.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says worker deaths overall dropped from 6,217 in 1992 to 5,657 in 2007, a reduction of about 8 per cent. Yet Hispanic worker deaths in the same period increased from 533 in 1992 to 937 in 2007, the latest year with set statistics. That’s a rise of  almost 80 per cent in Hispanic workplace deaths.

Larger numbers of Hispanics in the USA’s workforce account for some of the increase, but only a small amount. Since 1998, Hispanics in America’s workforce went from 10.4 per cent to 14 per cent in 2007.

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Today’s news that a man is charged with killing his wife on a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico is a grim reminder that cruise ship passengers are far more vulnerable than cruise lines’ carefree and romanticized marketing suggests.

A cruise, after all, is supposed to be about fun. Yet from murder, robbery and sexual assault to food poisoning, medical maladies and slip and fall accidents, a cruise ship can be a risky place.

That’s why new legislation is being proposed in Washington, D.C. to enhance cruise ship safety and accountability. Introduced by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.),  the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2009 would require cruise lines to report on-board crime allegations to the FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard.

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Talk about failing to see the forest for the trees. A news report by Houston’s KHOU TV Channel 11 on its website today has the headline “Cell phone fines mean big bucks for some Texas school districts.” The story concerns fines students must pay when they text or otherwise use cell phones in class, which is against school rules.

As the headline and the article’s content make clear, KHOU’s author considers the problem to be this: “Some schools are cashing in.” She goes on to question how the money collected when students break the rules and text in class is administered. Though there’s no evidence given of impropriety, the author’s conspiracy-theory attitude seems to be, “Those mean ol’ sneaky school districts!”

Of course, the real problem here with far broader implications and concerns is this: Too many of today’s students are disengaged from teachers, class, learning and their immediate environment because they are addicted to cell phones, texting and other avenues of needlessly incessant and exceedingly trivial communication.

These same students, when they drive a car or do a job for which others depend on them, are far more likely to continue such addictive behavior, thereby failing at their responsibilities and, in worst cases, killing themselves or someone else by being a distracted driver.

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July 4th weekend is a time to celebrate America’s liberty. Yet our liberties don’t include driving while impaired, a misjudgment which claims almost one third of all traffic deaths yearly, and an even higher 40 per cent of all traffic deaths on the mid-summer holiday.

Alcohol abuse by drivers crosses all geographic and socioeconomic lines. But motorcyclists have the highest proportion of alcohol abuse of any drivers on the road, and thus more motorcyclists die in traffic accidents on Independence Day than on any other day of the year.

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In June, Texas lost an average of one child a day to drowning. That’s 30 of the state’s 60 child drownings for the entire first half of the year, and all in one month — a month when pool activity escalates, and so do kids’ chances of losing their young lives.

The Houston Chronicle reports that this June, in fact, was the state’s deadliest month for child drownings since such tallies were taken starting in 2005. A majority of child drowning victims were toddlers 1 to 4 years old who succumbed in private home swimming pools.

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