Texas lawmakers know they must act, but how is the big question. Our state leads the nation in alcohol-related traffic deaths, and Dallas County is the nation’s third-worst for per capita drunk driving fatalities. Such tragic distinctions cannot continue.

One huge problem is that many drunk driving fatalities are caused by multiple offenders — people who already have been arrested as a drunk driver, but keep driving drunk anyway. While repeat offenders represent only 20 per cent of those arrested for drunk driving, they are a very dangerous one-fifth. How can they be rehabilitated — or kept from driving?

A recent Dallas Morning News report said Texas lawmakers can continue passing stricter laws to keep drunk drivers off streets, but that such laws haven’t worked well to date. Another option is to lessen financial penalties to drunk drivers, which would lead to fewer offenders opting for prison, rather than probation which includes substance abuse treatment.

One state senator wants a law which automatically and permanently revokes the license of anyone convicted of a second DUI offense. Sound extreme? Ask the suffering survivors of the 1,269 innocent Texans who were killed by drunk drivers in 2008 and since then, or the many thousands who suffered catastrophic injuries due to DUI car crash accidents.

Critics say this would only lead to more and more drunk drivers operating a vehicle without a license. For now, drunk drivers’ licenses are suspended for various amounts of time before being reinstated.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has other proposals, including adding more sobriety checkpoints and requiring ignition interlock devices to be installed in the vehicles of those who have driven drunk. Such devices analyze a person’s breath to determine if they are drunk and disable the car if that is the case.

We can’t know which measures Texas legislators will adopt, but one thing is clear: They must act. Otherwise they are tolerating the intolerable, and Texas’ grisly distinction as the America’s drunk driving capital will continue.

Jim S. Adler & Associates strongly supports MADD and other campaigns to fight drunk driving car accidents.

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America’s teens seem to have a disconnect between what they’ve been told and what they do. They’ve been told and given fair warning that distracted driving is deadly, killing 6,000 Americans yearly and injuring hundreds of thousands. Yet 86 per cent of teen drivers indulge in distracted driving anyway, often in the form of texting or making cell phone calls while at the wheel.

This finding came via a study conducted by Seventeen magazine and AAA auto club and reported by USA Today. It reported other common forms of distracted driving among teens as eating, adjusting a music device, applying makeup and driving with four or more other teens in the vehicle.

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Across America, disgruntled drivers are leading a backlash against red light cameras, which remotely spot red-light runners who are notified by mail of their traffic violation. It seems these drivers dislike the fact that cities “use” such system for revenue streams.

Oh, so that’s what it’s about? It’s not about drivers being peeved that they were caught?

If revenue streams were a good reason for discontinuing such cameras, why draw the line? Should no one get a traffic fine for any violation — ever — because that would enhance a city’s revenue streams? Of course, then no one would be punished, and rampant law-breaking on our roads would cause more traffic accidents.

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Texas has 17 million drivers on its roads. Sadly, several million of them who once passed a driving test wouldn’t be able to pass one today.

At least, that’s the finding of a recent GMAC Insurance study, which showed that almost 20 per cent of drivers nationwide — or about 38 million — would fail a driving test. In Texas that translates to about 3.4 million drivers who’d fail a driving test.

The survey also showed that Texas ranks 35th among the 50 states in driving test abilities. GMAC said Texans got 76 per cent of its driving test questions correctly, a bit below the national average of 76.2 per cent.

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The long Memorial Day weekend ahead is sure to bring car accident misery to Texas roads. But it’s also sure to bring more enforcement of our roadway laws. That’s because Texas Department of Public Safety officers will be out in force. While you play, they will work.

Last year, DPS officers issued more than 8,500 speeding tickets on Memorial Day weekend. They also wrote out 1,937 tickets for failing to wear seat belts and 521 for failing to provide proper child restraints. They also arrested 622 people for drunk driving.

Those kinds of violations again will be targeted for this long weekend, the DPS promises.

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Why should we get mad about drunk drivers, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)? Why should we have zero tolerance toward drunk drivers, pushing for more and stronger laws? Why are drunk driving car wreck accidents like a war against America? And why should anything change?

The answer to each question is simple: Drunk drivers are slaughtering us. They’ve been doing so virtually since autos were born, and though death numbers have risen and fallen, they’ve never disappeared. Put simply: Drunks kill — and isn’t that reason enough to do something about it?

Yet for many, news of another drunk driving fatality seems routine and, unless a loved one was killed, acceptable. Drunk drivers seem to be just a fact of life. But not all facts are unalterable.

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The Houston Chronicle’s new study of Houston area traffic accidents ended with this assessment by the Texas Transportation Institute: As drivers in the state’s largest city, with 83 million miles traveled daily, our “margin of error is extremely small.”

You could be doing everything right — wearing your seat belt, signaling when you change lines, obeying the speed limit, setting aside your cell phone — and still have a fatal car accident. That’s because it only takes a moment’s inattention or a single mistake –by you or another driver — to cause a car wreck or traffic tragedy.

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Yes, drivers of cars cause many traffic collisions. But who causes the worst? And who has the most responsibility for avoiding such catastrophes? Big rig, diesel truck, tractor trailer, semi truck or 18 wheeler drivers, that’s who. Their enormous rigs take longer to stop, and when they crash they are far more destructive.

Also, too many of their drivers fall asleep at the wheel.

It’s an occupational hazard, since diesel truck drivers who haul large loads across the country often drive for long, dull hours, including the middle of the night. But it’s a crucial distinction, especially in view of two tragedies this week in Houston and Kentucky.

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Highway work zone crashes kill hundreds nationwide, including many innocent Texans. Now the Texas Department of Transportation is hosting a 20-foot traveling wall memorializing such work zone deaths. Those tragedies occurred largely because drivers were too distracted or in too big of a hurry to heed the orange cones and barricades alerting them to work zones and urging their caution.

“People just need to learn to slow down and pay more attention to what’s going on on the road,” Central Texas DOT spokesman Ken Roberts told the Waco Tribune Herald. “There’s speeding and people doing things like talking on the phone, texting, eating.”

Tell us about it. As many as 6,000 American motorists yearly are now slaughtered by distracted drivers, often for no more reason than someone acting as if a call or text about lunch was an urgent matter while driving at high speed in heavy traffic.

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The following is a guest blog by Dolan Law Offices of Chicago, IL.

In the 20th Century, seatbelt laws and speed limit laws saved lives. While not everyone wears seatbelts or obeys the speed limit because states require them to do so, these laws educated many people and encouraged safe behavior.

In the 21st Century, Texas and other states are faced with additional driving problems that are making the roads dangerous. The Governor’s Highway Safety Association lists several types of possible laws that could make roads safer. Texas has significant laws banning drunk driving and requiring child safety seats. However, many current Texas laws do not provide as much protection as they could for drivers. For example:

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