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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Beverly Hills, CA plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan loved to send and receive messages via texts. But apparently he didn’t get one message until too late: Texting while driving kills.

Body reshaper of reality TV’s Heidi Montag, rock music’s Gene Simmons and Vince Neil and modeling’s Janice Dickinson, Ryan, 50, died Monday. It seems the Jeep he was driving veered off the Pacific Coast Highway and crashed upside-down at the bottom of a 200-foot embankment.

Police say he was texting at the time of the crash. He’d just taken a photo of his dog at a stop and sent it via Twitter. But instead of putting his communications device away, he kept using it while driving — and paid the ultimate price.

Such catastrophic accidents have become common in this age of putting unnecessary texts and phone calls above the life-or-death necessities of driving a vehicle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 6,000 Americans per year die in traffic accidents due to texting or cell phone distractions, and another half a million Americans are injured, many of them seriously.

That’s why 30 states and counting (but not yet Texas) have adopted laws banning texting while driving. California has such a law, but Dr. Ryan, like many people, either didn’t get the message or chose to disregard the texting law.

An irony is that Ryan was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash. Thus, he was obeying a law which, when first written, was decried by many as unenforceable. How can you make people wear seatbelts, and how can police know that they’re not?

But over the years the message has gotten through to millions of Americans that wearing seatbelts saves lives — and not wearing them contributes to tragedies. Now these same Americans need to get another message: Texting while driving leads to deaths and catastrophic injuries. Just look at the sad case of Dr. Frank Ryan.

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According to Houston’s Fox 26 TV, Harris County residents are more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than those of any other highly-populous county in the United States. (Harris County ranks third, with more than 4 million residents.)

This sobering threat to public safety is why local law enforcement agencies are gearing up to bring down the number of drunk drivers. They’re doing this via a multi-agency crackdown. Through Labor Day weekend, law officers will be working overtime to spot drunk drivers and get them off our roads, streets and highways.

Another part of the campaign is Choose Your Ride. This program emphasizes that those who drink should do anything but drive a vehicle. Instead, they are urged to take a cab or a bus, or ride with a sober friend or designated driver. Otherwise, they may wind up riding with a police officer — to jail.

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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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In Houston, a baby is on life support in a hospital because a car crashed into her family’s home. In San Antonio, a woman is hospitalized with serious injuries after a car crashed into her while she drove to church. In Dallas, four people are in a hospital after a three-car accident on North Central Expressway.

What do all these tragedies over the weekend have in common? They all involve suspected drunk drivers who lost control of their vehicle. But when the DUI suspect truly lost control was upon making a conscious decision to drink and then drive.

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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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