Texas Senator Considers Safety Bill After St. David's North Austin Medical Center Crash
The KXAN Investigates “Preventing Disaster” series, which has featured Howry Breen & Herman, LLP before, has continued with a new article focusing on Texas Senator Royce West (D-Dallas). This series began after a driver crashed through the unprotected front doors of St. David’s North Austin Medical Center, resulting in their own death and severely injuring five others, including all four members of the Bernard family. Senator West is now calling on his fellow legislators to consider drafting, filing, and/or backing a new safety bill that would require more storefronts and medical centers across Texas to install safety bollards that are designed to stop such accidents.
“We’ll sit down with the hospitals and kind of get their take on exactly how we go about tackling and resolving this particular problem. I’m committed to it,” Senator West told the KXAN investigation team. He further explained, “What happened to [the Bernard family] is a tragedy and it shouldn’t happen again in the state of Texas. And, I’m going to do everything I can in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Senator West reached his decision to push for legislative updates after reviewing information from the KXAN investigation team. Based on the newsgroup’s research, dangerous storefront crashes that could have been stopped by safety bollards or similar traffic safety barriers have occurred across the country about 30 times each year for the last 10 years. In other words, if more storefronts nationwide had been required to install traffic bollards, at least 300 or so serious accidents could have been prevented.
The Austin City Council and a few of its members, especially Councilmember Mackenzie Kelly, were the first to kickstart official talks about updating Texas’s laws regarding storefront safety bollards. An ordinance that was introduced to the Austin City Council will see its next vote on December 12, 2024. In response to hearing that Senator West had effectively joined the cause, Councilmember Kelly gave a succinct statement, “That’s amazing.”
However, before Senator West will draft or back a specific bill that would call for a statewide update to safety bollard requirements, he wants to talk with hospital officials. By doing so, he can get more information about the logistics of installing safety bollards and why hospital groups have not done so already. Here at Howry Breen & Herman, LLP, we are hopeful that West will soon officially back such legislative action; our attorneys are representing the Bernard family who were injured in the St. David’s North Austin Medical Center crash, so we are personally invested in this developing situation.
If you want to know more, you can click here to read the latest article from KXAN Investigates, associated with NBC News. If you want to know about Howry Breen & Herman, LLP and the work of our injury attorneys, you can contact us online or call (512) 430-4844 at any time. Thank you.