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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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In increasingly urban Texas, bicyclists and pedestrians are increasingly endangered. Yet Gov. Rick Perry last year vetoed a bill — passed overwhelmingly by the Senate and House — which would have offered  more protection to cyclists and walkers on or near our roads.

Now some cities, such as Austin, are enacting the same law on a municipal basis. And San Antonio may get one, too. A city council committee voted unanimously this week to send a “safe passing” ordinance for “vulnerable road uses” to the full council for approval next month.

Why is this vital? Because Texans are dying, and every bit helps. In 2008 alone, 50 Texans on bicycles were killed and 274 suffered incapacitating injuries in car-bicycle accidents. And every year, about 400 Texas pedestrians are killed by vehicles in car-pedestrian accidents.

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As fitness-conscious Americans have learned, walking is a very healthy exercise which can greatly extend your life. But the sad fact is that walking also can be dangerous, especially on or near streets and roads. Too many Americans are at great risk — and even die — from walking, and Houston is one of the worst cities for pedestrian accidents.

A recent Transportation for America study puts Houston among the 10 most dangerous U.S. cities for walking. Houston, Sugar Land and Baytown, in fact, ranked collectively as eighth in the T for A survey. Worst for walkers was Orlando/Kissimmee, FLA. That’s also spring-training home of the Houston Astros, who can’t get a break but at least are used to dodging traffic (which is how the now Los Angeles Dodgers got their name while still in Brookly, NY).

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An item in today’s San Antonio Express-News shows how far Texas has to go to treat pedestrians and cyclists with respect on our roads. It pertains to a horrible accident last week in which a San Antonio-area couple riding a tandem bicycle on a road’s shoulder were hit and killed by a pickup truck traveling 70 mph in a 65 mph zone.

The driver “lost control” — a common excuse for bad driving — and veered onto the shoulder, killing the two people.

No charges have been filed in the tragedy. Nor have charges been filed in the case of David Mollenauer, a San Antonio Symphony musician who was hit by a car while on his bike and left for dead earlier this year.

Mollenauer survived, and witnesses even got the car’s license number. Yet again, no charges have been filed, even though the driver’s identity is known.

Some say that’s because Texas treats cyclists and pedestrians as second-class citizens. If a car strikes property and damages it, then its driver is legally liable for negligence. If a car strikes a person in a motorcycle accident, bicycle accident or pedestrian accident, the car’s driver may face no penalty at all — even in a hit and run!

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Why is it so hard to collect  a car accident insurance claim, even when you weren’t at fault? Because insurance companies are stingy–and are getting even stingier due to uninsured motorists on the road. When an uninsured driver is at fault in a car accident, then the claim goes to the innocent driver’s insurer, who doesn’t want to pay. And that’s a huge problem.

Some Texas cities are doing something about it — but Houston isn’t one of them. According to a report on KHOU Channel 11 News, more than 15,000 drivers annually for the past two years were ticketed in Houston for driving without car insurance — a legal offense. And some uninsured drivers were ticketed repeatedly. In fact, more than 100 people got ticketed five times for the same offense.

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Most parents are extremely protective of kids. But anytime they take them in a car or other vehicle they’re exposing them to the No. 1 killer of America’s children. Indeed, child safety advocate group Safe Kids USA reports that car accidents and other motor vehicle mishaps are the chief cause of child deaths between ages 3 and 14.

That’s confirmed by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, which says car accidents are the top cause of deaths in kids aged 2-14. The center also says car accidents injure 250,000 American kids yearly. With about 2,000 of them suffering fatal injury, children are the victims in 5 per cent of America’s fatal traffic accidents. And unlike adults, it’s safe to say that no such child has caused the car accident in which he or she died.

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Actress Selena Gomez is a smart girl who’s onto something — something even more vital than courting the tweens who could push her past Hannah Montana’s Miley Cyrus as the Disney Channel’s next megastar. In fact, it’s something that could save Selena’s life — by preventing a car accident.

Selena has vowed to hang up and drive — at least, when she gets her license.

“Don’t do a thousand things in your car!” Selena told People magazine. “In the car, just focus on what you need to be doing.” And that means driving.

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Again, an innocent human being — this time a 7-year-old boy — has died — lost a lifetime — due to momentary driver distractions or inattentiveness.

In this case the boy, Cameron Dumore, was walking to school in Lithonia, GA. He was crossing the street within a crosswalk. A crossing guard was present, waving a handheld stop sign and alerting vehicles to stop. And they were, of course, in a school zone.

No matter. Despite all these things, an SUV driven by a 40-year-old woman disregarded the cross walk, the school zone, the crossing guard, the handheld stop sign and every other indicator to stop — including the boy himself — and, without slowing down, struck the boy and killed him.

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