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FORT WORTH — The Texas Transportation Commission voted Thursday to remove from standardized accident forms the phone numbers of people involved in accidents, making it harder for lawyers and medical providers to solicit business from crash victims using telemarketing firms.
The commission, meeting at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, voted to make the policy change starting Jan. 1. The commission holds its monthly meetings outside of Austin several times a year. "Telemarketing is not about the health of crash victims. It’s about making money," Insurance Council of Texas spokesman Mark Hanna told commissioners. "Solicitation has been a scam that has been allowed to grow and fester. Leave the crash victims alone."Decisions about what appears on accident reports are made by the Transportation Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Public safety employees fill out the forms, and the Transportation Department keeps the records.Initially, DPS officials decided that removing the phone numbers from the forms was a good idea and did so independently. Then a Texas chiropractor sued, saying the agency couldn’t remove the data without a public hearing. But this year, DPS appeared to do an about-face and determined that including the numbers has law enforcement value. DPS officials asked the Transportation Department to concur and take the formal step of voting to keep the blank space in place for phone numbers.But Transportation Commission members balked at that idea in September, saying they’d rather take the formal step of removing the space from the forms."Why give a phone number out? What an invasion of privacy," commission member Ted Houghton of El Paso said after Thursday’s meeting.DPS dropped its support for keeping the phone numbers, saying investigators have other ways to get in touch with people after accidents.Also on Thursday, commissioners heard a report from Tarrant County officials, who hope to have at least three huge projects under construction by next year: Southwest Parkway in Fort Worth; the expansion of Northeast Loop 820 and Texas 121/183, known as the North Tarrant Express; and the renovation of Grapevine highways known as the DFW Connector.In other action Thursday, the commission:Learned that about $5.92 billion less than expected will be available to pay contractors for highway work through 2020, based on forecasts from its finance staff that take into account economic conditions and how much gasoline people are expected to buy and pay taxes on.The Transportation Department expects to have $74.23 billion for road work during the next decade, down from $78.16 billion originally forecast in April 2008.Approved the expansion of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro planning area to include 12 entire counties. The North Central Texas Council of Governments projects that within 20 years the Metroplex’s urbanized area will include all of Tarrant, Johnson and Parker counties, as well as Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Hood, Hunt, Kaufman, Rockwall and Wise counties.Expanded truck lane restrictions to include larger stretches of Interstates 20, 30 and 45 in Tarrant and Dallas counties.GORDON DICKSON, 817-390-7796
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