Alright, I admit it.
I talk on my cell phone when behind the wheel.
And apparently I'm not the only one. Last week I reported that San Antonio drivers are tops in the state in causing accidents while using their cell phones.
This revelation came after we obtained and analyzed a database of all vehicle crashes maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation. It revealed that since 2005 officers statewide have cited cell phone use as a contributing factor in more than 17,519 accidents, with 7,519 injuries and 167 deaths. What's worse - San Antonio tops the state with 1,611 crashes over that same period.
So why did The Texas Department of Transportation try to keep this information secret?
Here's what I mean by that - TXDOT officials fought tooth and nail to prevent the Crash Records Information System (CRIS) database from ever being released.
My fight to get these records started back in 2008 when I filed an open records request for the entire database. The Attorney General ruled it was public, but TXDOT challenged the ruling in court. It feared the ruling would mean that ambulance chasing attorneys and chiropractors would have access to the names and address of crash victims. (Ironically, they already get that information from our local police departments.)
To calm those concerns, our attorney reached a deal with TXDOT. The state would provide the data without any personal information and we would withdraw our request. But for some reason, the agency at the time was slow to finalize the deal... the reason now is clear.
This is when TXDOT decided to get sneaky.
Late one Friday afternoon last March, while the lawsuit was still going on, I stumbled across a bill filed in the legislature that would make the entire crash database secret!
It turns out that TXDOT officials had quietly gone to Senator John Carona of Dallas, the head of the Senate's Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, and begged him to file a bill to ban release of the data - forever. The TXDOT officials decried the AG ruling and claimed it would spell disaster for accident victims who will be further besieged by rogue lawyers and doctors.
But TXDOT conveniently forgot to tell the senator about our lawsuit and the compromise it had agreed to. It also conveniently forgot to tell our lawyer that they had gone behind our back in a shameful attempt to shut off the data with a new law.
Once we learned what was going on, we sprung into action. I testified to the senate committee along with representatives of several open government and media groups. Luckily, the lawmakers listened and the governor eventually signed a bill making the data public - minus the personal information.
So why would TXDOT fight so hard to try and keep this information from you?
I don't know and could never get an honest answer from anyone at TXDOT.
If you ask anyone at the agency that was involved in this ridiculous attempt to seal off vital public information, they'll probably claim that I'm making all this up and the agency was only trying to protect poor accident victims.
And if you believe that, TXDOT will also sell you some toll roads if you're willing to buy that too.
Express News investigative reporter John Tedesco just wrote a great blog about about our fight with TXDOT - you can check it out by going to www.johntedesco.net
