Drunk Drivers Can Also be Police Officers

Austin, TX (Law Firm Newswire) June 19, 2014 – Most people think of drunk drivers as being average citizens weaving in and out of traffic or oblivious of where they are going. Drunk drivers may also be law enforcement personnel.

Just because police officers are sworn to uphold the laws does not mean that some do not cross the line and break those same laws. That is what happened in this tragic case where a drunk New Jersey officer killed another officer and critically injured a third colleague. Twenty-seven year old Pedro Abad Jr. was behind the wheel driving with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .24, three times the legal limit.

Abad was speeding the wrong way on the West Shore Expressway. He was driving two fellow officers and a friend home after a night out at a strip club. Driving on the wrong side of the expressway, Abad rammed into a tractor-trailer. After the deadly wreck, officers asked for and obtained a warrant to test the driver. “If this can happen in New Jersey, it can happen in Texas,” says drunk driving attorney Bobby Lee, of Austin’s Lee, Gober & Reyna, not involved in this case.

Social media is a good way to stay in touch with friends, but it may also be used as evidence in criminal cases and car crashes. Earlier in the evening of the day of the crash, Abad uploaded a picture to his Instagram account of three glasses of Jack Daniels. His driving record revealed two arrests for drunk driving in the past four years and that he had been involved in at least eight accidents since 2005. “What is a mystery is why two other officers and a friend were riding with Abad given his significant state of intoxication,” adds Lee.

The difficulty with drunk driving cases lies in the perception that those riding in a vehicle with a drunk driver, whether they are also drunk or not, made a choice and in making that choice, were authors of their own misfortune.

This is rarely a bar to taking such a case to court, as the driver clearly demonstrated negligence by driving while inebriated. As for a passenger or passengers making the decision to ride with that drunk driver, there may have been pressing necessity at play. “Riders may have had no other way to get home, did not think the driver was ‘that bad,’ thought it would be just a quick trip or gave in to friends razzing them. Most of the culpability for an accident rests with the intoxicated driver,” Lee points out.

Contacting an experienced personal injury attorney who handles plaintiff’s injuries as a result of being involved in an accident with a drunk driver is crucial to obtain justice and compensation.

To learn more, visit http://www.lgrlawfirm.com

Lee, Gober & Reyna
11940 Jollyville Road #220-S
Austin, Texas 78759
Phone: 512.478.8080

• Seibert Clarification from the U.S. Supreme Court Regarding Miranda Rights
  Anyone who has seen a cop show knows about the now famous 1966 Miranda case where the US Supreme Court imposed procedures designed to protect people from being coerced into giving a confession to the police while the person is being interrogated in police custody. The police, not wanting to be hindered by the requirement to provide Miranda warnings developed a two-step “question-first warn later” technique wherein the police interrogate a suspect without providing Miranda warnings, get the suspect to fully confess, then give the suspect the Miranda warnings and get the suspect to re-confess. The effect of this technique […]
• Texting distracts movement even when not on wheels
  Distracted driving isn’t the only transportation danger posed by texting, as distracted walking can result in harm as well. Some media reports indicate a rise in texting while biking even. What people don’t seem to realize is that walking with eyes on one’s phone and not on their surroundings can get them seriously injured or killed. We’re all familiar with the woman who went viral in a video after she walked and fell into a fountain in the middle of a mall while texting. Such stories are in the media everyday: people walking into moving traffic, fountains, walls, creeks, lakes, […]
• Cop pulls over distracted driver, only to get hit by another texting driver
  In a tale almost too bizarre to comprehend, an Oregon motorcycle police officer pulled over a driver for texting while driving on the Interstate, when a van ran into him from behind and ejected him from his motorcycle. The 55-year-old van driver wasn’t paying attention to where he was going because he was using his cellphone. The 41-year-old trooper was taken to the nearest medical center for treatment and listed in stable condition. This is the ultimate graphic example of the dangers of distracted driving, and highlights the difficulties of enforcing such a law at the grassroots law enforcement level. […]
• Older bikers do not have the same reflexes as they did when they were younger
  Statistics on motorcycle deaths are beginning to show an increase in the number of older riders meeting their deaths while biking. Daily, more than 12 people die in motorcycle accidents. A constantly growing portion of those killed are from the baby boomer generation. It’s not that they don’t have the experience. They do. However, their reflexes are not what they once were – a simple, yet frustrating part of life. According to the numbers, bikers in the 55 to 64-year-old bracket accounted for 16.3 percent of fatalities in 2013 and 17.2 percent in 2012. Why are the death tolls higher […]
• Legislators hope to keep affluent circumstances out of courtroom sentencing
  For months the media have doggedly generated headlines from the case of Ethan Couch. In December 2013, the Texas teen pled guilty to drinking and driving, and killing four people, using the affluenza defense of being swaddled into not being responsible for any of his actions during his upbringing. Texas lawmakers disagree with the validation of this fabricated disease, and want to ban the defense from ever being used in court again. State representatives feel the decision was not only fundamentally flawed, but an insult to the criminal justice system. James White, a state representative from southeast Texas, introduced a […]