A drunk driver hit a taxi and then careened through a church wall in New Orleans last month. In a story at wwltv.com, three Loyola University students assumed a safe ride home after a night at a local bar. The three hopped into a taxi around 3 a.m. and almost immediately, a drunk driver in an SUV hit their taxi.
After the impact, the SUV tore through the wall of the United Methodist Campus Center at Tulane University. The three taxi passengers suffered minor injuries, but the taxi driver suffered serious injuries and is in critical condition after the car accident. Police charged the 21-year-old SUV driver with DUI. The SUV driver also suffered minor injuries.
In 2008, 37 percent of traffic fatalities in Louisiana involved drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It does not take a lot of alcohol to cause an accident. In 2008, there were 404 traffic deaths in Louisiana where at least one driver had a blood alcohol concentration of .01, according to the NHTSA.
If only the SUV driver had the presence of mind to take a taxi like the other three students, four innocent victims would have arrived home safely and thousands of dollars in property damage would not have happened.
Harrell & Nowak, L.L.C. – New Orleans accident attorneys