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A car and a pickup truck collided early this morning in a major accident at an intersection on Bennington Street in Houston. The crash happened around 2:30 a.m., there were two men in each vehicle. Police found beer bottles at the scene but it is not reported whether drunk driving was believed to be a cause of the wreck. The driver of the pickup truck was seriously injured.

Photo credit: ABC Channel 13

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California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into effect a law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a license to drive in the state of California. The new policy changes a 1993 law prohibiting undocumented immigrants from attaining a license and advocates argue that the new law will reduce the overall number of accidents and will result in a decline in the number of uninsured drivers.

Uninsured driver accident lawyers in Irvine know that unlicensed drivers are overrepresented in fatal car accidents by a ratio of five to one. Unlicensed drivers are also unable to obtain insurance, which is a major concern in California where Think Progress reports that insurance companies paid $634 million in claims for uninsured motorist accidents in 2009. With the new rule change, these costs and the risk of fatal crashes should decline.

Preventing Uninsured Driver Accidents

In California, there are an estimated 24 million licensed drivers and two million unlicensed motorists. CBS News reports that as many as 1.4 million of the unlicensed motorists are undocumented immigrants who can now apply for licenses under the new law. The licenses will become available beginning January of 2015 and will carry a distinction on the front of the card indicating they are used for driving purposes only and not as federal identification.

California is the eleventh state to take this step, with seven of the other states changing their laws just in the past year to make it possible for undocumented immigrants to obtain a license.  Colorado and Oregon are among the states that have preceded California in granting licenses to individuals who are unable to prove citizenship status. The action is also not the first taken by California to make licensing more available, as the governor signed a bill last year permitting young undocumented immigrants granted temporary legal status by President Obama to obtain a license.

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In mid-July, two pedestrians were struck and hit at around 11:30 p.m. near Midtown Houston. KHOU reported that the pedestrians were in serious condition after the accident, which occurred on Tuam Street near Helena Street. The driver who was involved in the accident was allegedly intoxicated at the time and was arrested following the crash.

Our Houston lawyers know that those who are walking, jogging or biking are often at risk of sustaining very serious injuries in the event they are involved in a pedestrian accident. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that a pedestrian is one-and-a-half times as likely to be killed in a car wreck on each trip as compared to motorists in passenger vehicles. Unfortunately, lifelong injury or death are common since these accident victims have little or no protection from the force of the impact.

Pedestrians in Danger from Intoxicated Motorists

With so many pedestrian crashes causing injury or death, it should come as no surprise that there were 4,280 people killed and 70,000 injured in 2010 alone. The two Texas pedestrians who were involved in the recent accident on Tuam Street will be among those counted as injured in pedestrian accidents for 2013. The pedestrians – a man and a woman – were reportedly walking very close together, which is how a single driver hit them both. The two were taken to different hospitals. Both were listed in serious but stable condition.

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Pedestrian Lawyer

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas

Ramirez, Kristie Mayhugh, 40, and Cassandra Rivera, 38, along with Anna Vasquez, 38, were found guilty of molesting two girls in alleged assaults in 1994 that an expert has described as reminiscent of the Satanic ritual day care abuse cases of the 1980s and early 1990s. The women, known nationally as the “San Antonio 4,” always maintained their innocence. On Monday, after the district attorney agreed the group was entitled to a new trial on the grounds that recent scientific advances undermined testimony pivotal to their convictions, Ramirez, Mayhugh and Rivera were released on bond. Vasquez was paroled last year.

“I couldn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t believe I was here,” said Rivera, a mother of two who met her granddaughter for the first time Monday night. Rivera said she found herself staring at her 20-something son and daughter, who were just 9 and 8 years old when she first went to prison nearly 14 years ago. “I can’t believe they’re with me,” she said.

John Brecher / NBC News

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That finding was debunked on Monday, when the Bexar County Criminal District Attorney’s office and Ware said that scientific advances undermined the doctor’s testimony, leading to the three women’s release from prison. The women now await a decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on whether to grant them a new trial. If that happens, the district attorney will decline to prosecute them, and their convictions would be overturned, said Rico Valdez, the chief assistant criminal attorney who oversees the office’s post-conviction review.

The new scientific information was allowed to be presented under a “junk science” law passed in Texas earlier this year that gives defendants the chance to submit findings that may cast doubt on their conviction.

The agreement between the attorneys was a huge breakthrough for the women, who had felt they were railroaded at trial, partly because they are lesbians.

Cassandra Rivera hugs her son Michael on Nov. 19, his 22nd birthday and her first full day out of prison in nearly 14 years. “I made it in time for your birthday,” she told him Monday just after her release.

Vasquez and Rivera, who entered prison three years after Ramirez, said a woman in their initial unit wanted to jump them until she heard their side of the story: they told her they were falsely accused.

The group ended up doing the same with other inmates, but some still called them child molesters, Rivera said. “I still walked with my head held high because I knew I was innocent. We were innocent,” she said. “We know what happened, and the truth is going to eventually come out.”

The women, except for Ramirez, could have avoided prison. Plea deals were offered, but they refused to accept them on the grounds that they were innocent. They could have left prison earlier, too, if they agreed to participate in a sex offender treatment program, which they all rejected.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/19/21540535-san-antonio-4-speak-out-after-prison-release-were-actually-innocent?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1

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