The Texas State legislature passed the original Move Over law in 2003. It was designed to protect all law enforcement officers, emergency vehicles, and first responders from being struck by a driver when working on the side of a road or highway. The law requires any driver approaching a stopped emergency vehicle with lights activated to slow down or move over one lane.
The Texas Department of Insurance recently released a report detailing the number of people driving without coverage. The good news is the number of Texans driving without car insurance is still lower than it was a few years ago when it was over 20% of all Dallas drivers. The current figures show 1 in 6 people on Dallas roadways don’t have car insurance and this number is even higher than it was last year.
You are in your car, stopped at a red light patiently waiting for it to turn green so you can get to your destination. A car zooms up behind you and rear ends you. Maybe the driver wasn’t paying attention, was texting, or some other equally frustrating reason the driver didn’t stop. You know your car sustained significant damage just from the force of the impact.
Several months ago, a friend of mine called. Tom, not his real name, and his buddy had traveled to San Antonio for a guy’s trip a couple of weekends earlier. Tom drove through a construction zone where there was a lane shift followed by a traffic light. Based on the location of the light, he mistakenly thought he was supposed to stop about 40 yards away. He ended up passing through the intersection and was struck by a car that had a green light. It was his fault.
I had coffee last week with a friend of mine in Dallas. We’ll call her Abby, not her real name. We were catching up on each other’s summer and how our businesses were doing; they’re both growing. Abby owns one of the top catering companies in Dallas handling everything from a family meal, when no one feels like cooking, to a sit down dinner for 5,000 people. She’s quite the chef! When my wife had eye surgery earlier this year, Abby gave me a batch of her tortilla soup to aid in Sheri’s recovery. It was the best soup either of us has ever had.
The Dallas Morning News reported earlier this year on surcharges the state of Texas assesses to Texas drivers who are convicted of offenses such as driving while intoxicated, failure to maintain car insurance, and driving without a valid license or with an invalid license. These driver surcharges were enacted as a part of The Driver Responsibility Program in 2003.
School supplies are out in force at Wal-Mart, Target, and office supply stores across the Dallas / Fort Worth area. That means it’s almost time for our kids to return to the classroom. In the next two weeks the familiar flashing light marking school zones will renew its warning and traffic will be interspersed with school buses for each of the independent school districts. It’s time to revisit Texas laws concerning both school zones and driving around buses.
I received a letter last week from the University of Alabama, Birmingham alumni association. I graduated from there with a business degree, I’ll let you guess when. The letter was to offer me savings of $300 to $400 a year on my car insurance with a company I was with before I started Wise Insurance Group. As an alumnus of UAB, I qualified for an insurance discount.
Having a child go to college is a wonderful and sometimes slightly scary time for most parents. Son or daughter is spreading their wings, stepping out on their own and beginning to prepare for life as an adult while they figure what their future holds. It is also a time when a son or daughter begins to make decisions for themselves, some of which have adult level consequences.
In case you missed it, the Biggert-Waters Flood Reform Act of 2012 (BW-12) was passed by the U.S. Congress in July of last year. The goal of BW-12 is for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and other agencies to make changes in how the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is administered.
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