Increased Patrols Used During Holiday Weekend

Unfortunately, the same holiday during which the United States celebrates its independence is one of the deadliest for traffic crashes.

In Dallas, you may have seen a lot more police cruisers prowling the streets during the Fourth of July holiday. The Texas Department of Transportation provided grant money that allowed Dallas police officers to increase their patrols and to try to keep the roads safer over the holiday.

More than a thousand arrests.

According to a press release, the July 4 holiday brought over 1,400 arrests for Dallas police, only counting DWIs. The Police Department credits nearly 600 of those arrests as being the collective result of being able to patrol the streets in greater numbers. Drunk driving fatalities tend to occur more during holidays and, in some areas, they tend to occur more in specific geographic locations than they do in others. Overall, the Texas Department of Transportation notes in the press release that in excess of 1,000 Texans lose their lives to drunk drivers every year.

The police aren’t always there.

Despite the increased patrols, one can never count on the police being there when a drunk driver is on the street. It’s important to remember basic rules of safety when dealing with such drivers to prevent yourself from being involved in an accident. The main thing to remember about drunk drivers is that they are erratic in how they drive and that predicting their behavior at any given moment is nearly impossible.
The best advice is to simply steer clear of the drunk driver if you can. Use a side road, get by them if you have to or stay well behind them; whatever works to keep you out of the path of their vehicle. Be wary of drunk drivers stopping suddenly in the middle of the street for no reason or stopping at green lights and going through red lights. The only realistic way to describe the behavior of a drunken driver is to say that it is random in the extreme.
If you’re injured in an accident involving a drunken driver, people you know may recommend a Dallas attorney as a resource for dealing with the fallout of the accident. In some cases, the Dallas drunk driving accident attorney may be able to file a lawsuit against the drunk driver and get compensation for what you suffered due to their negligence. This isn’t always the case, but, for some drivers, it’s the best possible option and the only way they can realistically handle the damage the driver did to them.